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This article presents a Red List of mite species from the suborder Uropodina (Acari: Parasitiformes) occurring in Poland. Evaluation of the conservation status of the analyzed species was compiled on the basis of new criteria, which may also be applied to other groups of soil fauna. The authors employ the names of categories proposed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). One of our aims was to review the IUCN criteria to ascertain whether they are applicable in an attempt to assess the danger of extinction of soil invertebrates, and to see whether the criteria can be adapted to make such an assessment. The analyzed material contained 93 mite species obtained from 16,921 soil samples, which were collected between 1961 and 2017 in the whole area of Poland. The categories were assigned to species on the basis of the frequency of the species, but also other factors were taken into account, such as microhabitat specificity, vulnerability to detrimental conditions, and shrinking of local populations. One of the analyzed species can now be regarded as extinct, over 25% of the species (26 spp.) were labeled as critically endangered, and most of them (33 spp.) were categorized as vulnerable—the other species were assigned to the categories endangered (13 spp.), near threatened (10 spp.), and least concern (10 spp.).

ABSTRACT. We investigated the influence of litter moisture, water levels and eutrophication on the microspatial distribution of terrestrial molluscs as well as their responses to the aforementioned factors. The studies were carried out in two moist, alkaline habitats in western Poland, differing in a range of environmental conditions. Redundancy Analysis showed that litter moisture was the leading factor affecting the microspatial distribution of the snails. To analyse the relationships between species abundance and litter moisture and water levels we determined a generalized linear model (GLM). The results of the analysis show that the abundance of the majority of the species decreased with increasing eutrophication. The abundance of the majority of species increased with increase in litter moisture at the Ilanka site, whereas conversely at the Pliszka site, the majority of the species showed a decreasing abundance with increasing litter moisture. The limiting factor at the Pliszka site was probably local inundations as well as litter and plant cover.

In this study we investigated the mesostigmatid mite communities of starling (

We present the results of research into the distribution and migration of three species of mites in the genus Labidostomma after the Pleistocene glaciation period in Europe. This study primarily focuses on the area of Poland, which was affected by the Scandinavian glacier four times. The migration trajectories of the species have been reconstructed on the basis of the current distribution, their altitude preferences, the sex ratio in populations of Labidostomma luteum, and the body size differences in different populations of L. luteum and L. denticulata. These species all have distributional limits in Poland: L. luteum—southeastern boundary, L. denticulata—northern, and Labidostomma cornuta—northwestern. Labidostomma luteum is a typically lowland species, L. cornuta occurred from 300 to 700 m a.s.l., and L. denticulata inhabits mountainous areas. The youngest populations of L. luteum and L. denticulata contain the smallest individuals. The number of males in populations of L. luteum is lower in northern areas of Europe, where the glacier has already retreated and the smaller specimens of L. luteum and L. denticulata were collected in the most remote habitats from the southern refugia where they succeeded in survival during the glaciation period.

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Earthworms (Oligochaeta, Lumbricidae) form a significant component of the food web and are the staple diet of many higher‐trophic‐level predators, such as invertebrate‐feeding birds and mammals. Their almost complete digestion in the predator's gut hampers their detection or quantification in faeces or pellets except through labour‐intensive microscopic examination. As a result, the evaluation of earthworms as a component of diet has been neglected in most studies based on pellet analysis. We assess whether the earthworm component of the diet of White Storks Ciconia ciconia can be estimated reliably by measuring soil mass in pellets, and whether the fact that White Storks also consume European Moles Talpa europaea (themselves consumers of earthworms) affects this relationship. We found a significantly higher density of earthworm chaetae, but less soil material, in pellets containing the remains of Moles. This may indicate the secondary origin of some chaetae from the intestines of the ingested Moles. There was a strong relationship and close fit between the number of earthworm chaetae and the mass of soil (material < 0.2 mm) retrieved from all the pellets analysed. Approximating the number of chaetae based on a soil mass of 192 mg per 1000 chaetae yielded results differing by only 4–5% from numbers of chaetae counted directly. This validates the proposed method of indirectly calculating the number of earthworms consumed from the ingested soil mass, which simplifies and shortens the time‐consuming direct counting of chaetae and could contribute to a more detailed description and analysis of diets in wild birds. Such assessments are important in order to improve the detection of changes induced by the progressive simplification and loss of primary food web resources (such as earthworms) within agro‐ecosystems as a consequence of both the rapid intensification of agricultural production and climate change.