Nests of Diadasia hirta are documented here for the first time. Nests have a cylindrical turret, one vertical principal burrow, cells disposed in linear series, and an oval pollen mass. Almost all observed behavioral traits and nest architecture features resemble those of other species of Diadasia. One exceptional behavior observed was pollen removal from the nest.

A new species of Heriades Spinola, H. tayrona, is described and figured based on females collected in a tropical dry forest of the Caribbean coast of Colombia. This is the first record of the genus and the tribe Osmiini for South America.

Insect pollinators provide a critical ecosystem service by pollinating many wild flowers and crops. It is therefore essential to be able to effectively survey and monitor pollinator communities across a range of habitats, and in particular, sample the often stratified parts of the habitats where insects are found. To date, a wide array of sampling methods have been used to collect insect pollinators, but no single method has been used effectively to sample across habitat types and throughout the spatial structure of habitats. Here we present a method of ‘aerial pan-trapping’ that allows insect pollinators to be sampled across the vertical strata from the canopy of forests to agro-ecosystems. We surveyed and compared the species richness and abundance of a wide range of insect pollinators in agricultural, secondary regenerating forest and primary forest habitats in Ghana to evaluate the usefulness of this approach. In addition to confirming the efficacy of the method at heights of up to 30 metres and the effects of trap color on catch, we found greatest insect abundance in agricultural land and higher bee abundance and species richness in undisturbed forest compared to secondary forest.

Lepidoptera were surveyed using blacklight traps during the growing seasons of 2004 and 2005 in two counties that differed in land use patterns in the Ozark Mountains, Arkansas. Marion County is a fragmented landscape; habitats surveyed were upland forest, riparian forest, edge, and field. Crawford County lies in the Ozark National Forest; habitats surveyed were saw, pole, and sapling size classes of timber. Moths ≥20 mm in wingspan were identified and enumerated. A total of 8326 moths of ≥324 species and 22 families were identified and tabulated. The total number of species and family-level composition varied little between landscapes, but the relative occurrence of species varied between landscapes and across habitats. Dominance of common species varied between landscapes with fewer species forming the bulk of the assemblage in the fragmented landscape. Endemism of certain moths in riparian forest suggests this habitat supports many species. In contrast, few species were recorded in field habitats. These data demonstrate the importance of forest habitats for many moth species in the Ozark Mountains. Our study forms a foundation for understanding species richness patterns of Lepidoptera in the hardwood forests of central North America.

Visitors to flowers of Cornus florida and C. kousa were assessed in East Tennessee during spring in 2008 and 2009. Visitation rate data were compiled throughout the flowering period of both tree species across a range of environmental conditions. Diurnal and seasonal variations in visitation are reported. Pollen coverage on collected insects was assessed to estimate pollination efficiency. In total, 11 families from 4 insect orders were collected from C. florida and 26 families from 5 insect orders were collected from C. kousa. Visitors to C. florida varied considerably across sites and between years, however bees in the families Andrenidae and Halictidae were consistently present and are expected to be key pollinators of flowering dogwood. Although halictid bees were also common visitors to C. kousa the most common visitors to Chinese dogwood were scarab, cerambycid, and cantharid beetles.

A new species of the genus Aphelopus Dalman (Hymenoptera: Dryinidae) from Yunnan Province, China is described and illustrated. Existing keys to species are revised to incorporate A. alebroides, new species. The new species is a parasitoid of an unidentified species of Alebroides Matsumura (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae: Typhlocybinae) feeding on Zanthoxylum bungeanum Maximowicz (Rutaceae) (Chinese prickly-ash; Sichuan pepper tree).

The genus Tzustigmus Finnamore (Crabronidae: Pemphredoninae: Pemphredonini) from China is reviewed and a key to the world species is provided. Three new species, T. denserectus Ma and Chen from Shaanxi Province, China; T. caputipunctatus Ma and Li from Shaanxi and Henan Provinces, China; and T. pesangulatus Ma and Li from Yunnan Province are described and illustrated. Two species are reported from China for the first time: T. khmer Finnamore and T. syam Finnamore.

A new genus and species of aetheogrammatid lacewings is described and figured from the Jurassic of eastern Inner Mongolia, China (Daohugou; Jiulongshan Formation). Ectopogramma kalligrammoides Engel, Huang, and Lin, new genus and species, is noteworthy for the forked c-sc crossveins and presence of veinlets between the c-sc crossveins and the presence of some marginal twigging, while still retaining many putative apomorphies with the slightly more extreme venation of Aetheogramma Ren and Engel (Early Cretaceous; Yixian Formation). The wing venation provides a tantalizing link between the more extreme venation of the younger and more derived Aetheogramma speciosum Ren and Engel, nomen emendatum, and the venation of families such as Kalligrammatidae. Ectopogramma is placed in a separate subfamily, Ectopogrammatinae, new subfamily. The genus Kalligrammina Panfilov is considered as family incertae sedis.