Accelerated farmland bird population declines in European countries after their recent EU accession.

Agricultural intensification is a major driver of global biodiversity loss. In Europe, intensification progressed over the 20th century and was accelerated by instruments of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy. Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries standing outside the EU until the beginning of the 21st century employed less intensive farming and are considered one of the continent's farmland biodiversity strongholds.

Autumn migration of the migrant hawker (Aeshna mixta) at the Baltic coast.

Background: Migratory insects are important for the provision of ecosystem services both at the origin and destination sites but - apart from some iconic species - the migration routes of many insect species have not been assessed. Coastlines serve as a funnel where migrating animals including insects accumulate. Migratory behaviour and captures of dragonflies in bird traps suggest autumn migration of dragonflies along coastlines while the origin and regularity of this migration remain unclear.

The Potential for Long-Term Sustainability in Seminatural Forestry: A Broad Perspective Based on Woodpecker Populations.

We assessed ecological sustainability of seminatural forestry by analyzing 80-year dynamics and the current distribution of all woodpecker species in Estonia. We found that, despite the clear-cutting-based forestry system, woodpeckers inhabited commercial seminatural forests in substantial numbers, including the species generally considered vulnerable to timber harvesting. The only negative trend, a drastic decline in the Green Woodpecker, paralleled the loss of seminatural, wooded grasslands and is mostly an issue for landscape planning and agricultural land use.