During the main COVID-19 global pandemic lockdown period of 2020 an impromptu set of pollination ecologists came together via social media and personal contacts to carry out standardised surveys of the flower visits and plants in gardens. The surveys involved 67 rural, suburban and urban gardens, of various sizes, ranging from 61.18° North in Norway to 37.96° South in Australia, resulting in a data set of 25,174 rows, with each row being a unique interaction record for that date/site/plant species, and comprising almost 47,000 visits to flowers, as well as records of flowers that were not visited by pollinators, for over 1,000 species and varieties belonging to more than 460 genera and 96 plant families. The more than 650 species of flower visitors belong to 12 orders of invertebrates and four of vertebrates. In this first publication from the project, we present a brief description of the data and make it freely available for any researchers to use in the future, the only restriction being that they cite this paper in the first instance. The data generated from these global surveys will provide scientific evidence to help us understand the role that private gardens (in urban, rural and suburban areas) can play in conserving insect pollinators and identify management actions to enhance their potential.

The taxonomy of cyclostome bryozoans is founded on characters of the skeleton, but molecular sequence data have increasingly shown that established higher taxa are not monophyletic. Here we describe the skeletal morphology of a new species from Guadeloupe (French West Indies) with erect ramose colonies consisting of long, curved zooids that are typical of the suborder Cerioporina among living cyclostomes. However, molecular evidence from nuclear ribosomal RNA genes 18S and 28S places the new taxon in the suborder Rectangulata, where this colony-form has not been previously recorded. It nests firmly within the genus Disporella Gray, 1848, in a strongly supported clade that also includes Plagioecia patina (Lamarck, 1816) (Tubuliporina) and the sister taxa Doliocoitis cyanea Gordon & Taylor, 2001 (Rectangulata) and Favosipora rosea Gordon & Taylor, 2001 (Cerioporina). The short and robust branches of the new Guadeloupe cyclostome, here named Disporella guada Harmelin, Taylor & Waeschenbach sp. nov., are well adapted to life in shallow rocky sites exposed to severe wave action, which appear to be its exclusive habitat.

Abstract: The OSIRIS‐REx mission returned a sample of regolith from the carbonaceous asteroid Bennu in September 2023. We present preliminary in situ investigations of the petrology and petrography of selected particles ranging in size from 0.5 to 3 mm. Using a combination of optical and electron beam techniques, we investigate whole specimens and polished sections belonging to morphologically and visually distinct categories of particles. We find that morphological differences in the particles are reflective of petrographic and petrologic differences, leading to the conclusion that we have at least two distinct major lithologies in the bulk sample. Our findings support predictions from remote sensing, suggesting that the morphological differences observed in the boulder population of Bennu correspond to petrologic differences. Our data provide insight into the geologic activity on Bennu's parent body and the petrographic framework needed to contextualize the detailed analyses of this pristine asteroidal material.

Nearshore reefs, at the interface of land-sea interactions, provide essential ecosystem services, but are susceptible to multiple global and local stressors. These stressors can detrimentally impact coral growth and the continuity of the reef framework. Here, we analyse coral growth records (1998 – 2016) of massive <jats:italic>Porites</jats:italic> spp. colonies from nearshore reefs in Fiji. Our aim is to assess the role of thermal stress and turbidity on coral growth across a range of environments. Our findings reveal a negative linear relationship between linear extension and seawater turbidity across locations (GLM, R<jats:sup>2</jats:sup> = 0.42, <jats:italic>p</jats:italic> &lt; 0.001), indicating that average coral growth is significantly influenced by local environmental conditions. On interannual timescales, all locations experienced a 14% to 30% decrease in linear extension in response to acute thermal stress during the 2013 – 2016 period. This finding highlights the existence of compounding effects between water quality and thermal stress. We suggest that inshore, long-lived massive hard corals in areas of high turbidity are more vulnerable to increasing SSTs due to an already reduced mean growth. Integrated management strategies in these regions that considers managing for multiple, interacting local stressors are warranted to enhance resilience.

Acariform mites play a crucial role as primary soil decomposers, impacting the carbon cycle. However, the timing of their diversification is uncertain, with estimated dates ranging from the Precambrian (no land plants) to the Carboniferous (diverse terrestrial ecosystems). One factor affecting these time estimates is an uncertain phylogenetic position of the earliest unequivocal fossil mites from the Devonian Rhynie Chert, which have been classified in five modern families and three suborders. Here, we thoroughly examine these specimens, assign them to a single species Protacarus crani (family Protoacaridae, fam. nov., suborder Endeostigmata) and integrate this information into a time-calibrated phylogenetic analysis. Our phylogeny suggests a Cambrian basal divergence of Acariformes (508-486 Ma), coinciding with the land colonization by bryophytes. At this time, the mites' ecological niches were probably diversified beyond the upper soil. Our study provides temporal context, improves the accuracy of fossil dating, and underscores the importance of mites' diverse habitats and their potential roles in soil food webs.

The ability to identify and quantify the constituent plant species that make up a mixed‐species sample of pollen has important applications in ecology, conservation, and agriculture. Recently, metabarcoding protocols have been developed for pollen that can identify constituent plant species, but there are strong reasons to doubt that metabarcoding can accurately quantify their relative abundances. A PCR‐free, shotgun metagenomics approach has greater potential for accurately quantifying species relative abundances, but applying metagenomics to eukaryotes is challenging due to low numbers of reference genomes. We have developed a pipeline, RevMet (Reverse Metagenomics) that allows reliable and semi‐quantitative characterization of the species composition of mixed‐species eukaryote samples, such as bee‐collected pollen, without requiring reference genomes. Instead, reference species are represented only by ‘genome skims’: low‐cost, low‐coverage, short‐read sequence datasets. The skims are mapped to individual long reads sequenced from mixed‐species samples using the MinION, a portable nanopore sequencing device, and each long read is uniquely assigned to a plant species. We genome‐skimmed 49 wild UK plant species, validated our pipeline with mock DNA mixtures of known composition, and then applied RevMet to pollen loads collected from wild bees. We demonstrate that RevMet can identify plant species present in mixed‐species samples at proportions of DNA ≥ 1%, with few false positives and false negatives, and reliably differentiate species represented by high versus low amounts of DNA in a sample. RevMet could readily be adapted to generate semi‐quantitative datasets for a wide range of mixed eukaryote samples. Our per‐sample costs were £90 per genome skim and £60 per pollen sample, and new versions of sequencers available now will further reduce these costs.

A new exceptionally preserved euarthropod, Keurbos susanae gen. et sp. nov. from the Upper Ordovician Soom Shale Konservat‐Lagerstätte of South Africa, is described herein. Two specimens exhibit an unusual preservation style such that the cuticular exoskeleton is preserved in low relief but retains high‐fidelity details, whereas the internal anatomy is preserved in three dimensions and includes myoanatomy and aspects of the connective inter‐ and intrasegmental endoskeleton. The trunk has 46 homonomous segments and tapers towards the posterior. The dorsal surface comprises the posterior margins of tergites that form rounded paratergal folds at their lateral margins. Sternal morphology is seen from an internal view of the fossils and includes axial sternites and associated ovoid plates, both with fringing setae along their posterior margins. Patchy, incomplete preservation of the appendages is consistent with the ‘reversed’ taphonomy of these fossils in which sclerotized elements that project beyond the body margin, such as lamellae with vascular channels and pits, are preserved, whereas those inside the body margins are absent or poorly expressed. Euarthropod characters include an arthrodized tergal and sternal exoskeleton, and a segmental connective endoskeleton. Recent depopulation of the euarthropod stem group has witnessed conspicuously arthrodized fossils formerly placed in the stem group being shifted into the crown, increasing the likelihood that <jats:italic>Keurbos</jats:italic> is likewise a crown‐group euarthropod. Comparison with a phylogenetically disparate suite of similarly homonomous, multisegmented taxa indicates no convincing synapomorphies. The grouping of relevant middle Palaeozoic exemplars as ‘enantiopod’ pancrustaceans could suggest that Keurbos might be allied.