In the Cook Islands in 2024, the population decreased by about 2.24 percent compared to the previous year, making it the country with the highest population decline rate in 2024. Of the 20 countries with the highest rate of population decline, the majority are island nations, where emigration rates are high (especially to Australia, New Zealand, and the United States), or they are located in Eastern Europe, which suffers from a combination of high emigration rates and low birth rates.

The population of Europe decreased by approximately 0.09 percent in 2023, falling to an overall total of approximately 743.5 million people. Since 1961, Europe's population growth rate has never exceeded one percent, and was even declining in the late 1990s and between 2020 and 2023.

In 2023, Ukraine had the fastest growing population in Europe. As a result of Ukrainian citizens who had fled Russia's invasion of the eastern European country in 2022 returning to the country in 2023, Ukraine's population grew by 3.68 percent compared to 2022. Excluding this special case, the European countries which saw the greatest population growth in 2023 were Luxembourg, Norway, and Ireland. Overall, Europe's population declined by 0.09 percent in 2022, with this varying by region from a 0.31 percent decline in eastern Europe to an increase of 0.33 percent in northern Europe. All of the countries which saw the largest declines in their population in 2023 were central and eastern European countries which had hosted large numbers of Ukrainian refugees in 2022. Moldova, one of Ukraine's closest neighbours, saw its population decline by 3.6 percent, while Poland's population declined by 2.2 percent, and Slovakia's by 1.8 percent.

The population of Europe is expected to fall from ***** million in 2023 to just ***** million people by 2100, in the medium-variant scenario provided in this projection. In the scenario where the population declines even further, the population of Europe may fall to as low as ***** million by 2100, while in the high-variant projection, the population will increase to approximately ***** million.

The population of Europe was estimated to be 742.2 million in 2023, an increase of around 2.2 million when compared with 2013. Over 35 years between 1950 and 1985, the population of Europe grew by approximately 157.8 million. But 35 years after 1985 it was estimated to have only increased by around 38.7 million. Since the 1960s, population growth in Europe has fallen quite significantly and was even negative during the mid-1990s. While population growth has increased slightly since the low of -0.07 percent in 1998, the growth rate for 2020 was just 0.04 percent.

Which European country has the biggest population? As of 2021, the population of Russia was estimated to be approximately 145.9 million and was by far Europe's largest country in terms of population, with Turkey being the second-largest at over 85 million. While these two countries both have territory in Europe, however, they are both only partially in Europe, with the majority of their landmasses being in Asia. In terms of countries wholly located on the European continent, Germany had the highest population at 83.9 million, and was followed by the United Kingdom and France at 68.2 million and 65.4 million respectively.

Characteristics of Europe's population There are approximately 386.5 million females in Europe, compared with 361.2 million males, a difference of around 25 million. In 1950, however, the male population has grown faster than the female one, with the male population growing by 104.7 million, and the female one by 93.6 million. As of 2021, the single year of age with the highest population was 34, at 10.7 million, while in the same year there were estimated to be around 136 thousand people aged 100 or over.

European countries are experiencing population decline and the tacit assumption in most analyses is that the decline may have detrimental welfare effects. In this paper we use a survey among the population in the Netherlands to discover whether population decline is always met with fear. A number of results stand out: population size preferences differ by geographic proximity: at a global level the majority of respondents favors a (global) population decline, but closer to home one supports a stationary population. Population decline is clearly not always met with fear: 31 percent would like the population to decline at the national level and they generally perceive decline to be accompanied by immaterial welfare gains (improvement environment) as well as material welfare losses (tax increases, economic stagnation). In addition to these driving forces it appears that the attitude towards immigrants is a very strong determinant at all geographical levels: immigrants seem to be a stronger fear factor than population decline.

Data used for analyses in "Exogenous Loss of Labor: The Black Death in Fourteenth Century Europe" (Chapter 4).

apportionments_pop_2021_pred_2024.xlsx This is a dataset containing prediction apportionments of seats for the 2024 election of the European Parliament (EP). This prediction is based on population data from the 2021 census held by Eurostat. See our paper for the standard function, configurations of parameters, and d-rounding rules we used for calculation. Note: We recommend readers who are not so well informed about apportionment problems and rounding rules see https://www.census.gov/library/video/2021/what-is-apportionment.html or https://www.census.gov/history/www/reference/apportionment/methods_of_apportionment.html.

Data interpretations for this dataset are as follows. 4 worksheets: all: prediction apportionment results of all configurations under the assumption that the membership remains unchanged and the total number of seats is between 705 (current total number of seats) and 750 (statutory threshold). no_lose: prediction apportionment results under the following assumptions: (1) the membership remains unchanged; (2) any Member State does not lose any seats from the current distribution of seats; (3) and the total number of seats is between 705 and 750. increase_no_lose: prediction apportionment results under the following assumptions: (1) the membership remains unchanged; (2) any Member State with an increasing population does not lose any seats from the current distribution of seats; (3) and the total number of seats is between 705 and 750. response: prediction apportionment results under the following assumptions: (1) the membership remains unchanged; (2) any Member State with an increasing population does not lose any seats from the current distribution of seats while any Member State with a decreasing population does not gain seats; (3) and the total number of seats is between 705 and 750. Meanings of column names: State: name of Member State of the European Union p_2011: population data from the 2011 census (data source: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/population-demography/population-housing-censuses/database) p_2021: population data from the 2021 census (data source: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Population_and_housing_census_2021_-_population_grids&stable=1#Distribution_of_European_population) stat_2020: current distribution of seats in the EP (data source: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/eu-affairs/20180126STO94114/infographic-how-many-seats-does-each-country-get-in-in-the-european-parliament) other columns: composed in the order of "a", "gamma", "d-rounding rule", and "the total number of seats (S)".

indexes_pop_2021_pred_2024.csv This is a dataset presenting the extent of the PSI-based inequality index (index based on Population Seat Index) and the conventional PSP-based index (index based on the proportion of seats to population) of all prediction apportionments of seats for the 2024 election of the European Parliament (EP). This prediction is based on population data from the 2021 census held by Eurostat. See our paper for the standard function, configurations of parameters, and d-rounding rules used for calculation and the PSI-based index and PSP-based index used for evaluation. Data interpretations for this dataset are as follows. Meanings of column names: a: configuration of the standard function gamma: configuration of the standard function rounding: d-rounding rule used for obtaining a whole number S: the total number of seats in the prediction x_min: the minimum number of seats in the prediction apportionment x_max: the maximum number of seats in the prediction apportionment inequality index: maximum of PSI divided by minimum of PSI psp_max/psp_min: maximum of PSP divided by minimum of PSP

MIP20 - European Population on 1 January. Published by Eurostat. Available under the license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY-4.0).European Population on 1 January...

Population declines among migratory Arctic-breeding birds are a growing concern for conservationists. To inform the conservation of these declining populations, we need to understand how demographic rates such as breeding success are influenced by combinations of extrinsic and intrinsic factors. In this study we examined inter-annual variation and long-term trends in two aspects of the breeding success of a migratory herbivore, the Bewick's swan Cygnus columbianus bewickii, which is currently undergoing a population decline: 1) the percentage of young within the wintering population and 2) mean brood size. We used an information-theoretic approach to test how these two measures of productivity were influenced over a 26 yr period by 12 potential explanatory variables, encompassing both environmental (e.g. temperature) and intrinsic (e.g. pair-bond duration) factors. Swan productivity exhibited sensitivity to both types of explanatory variable. Fewer young were observed on the wintering grounds in years in which the breeding period (May to September) was colder and predator (Arctic fox) abundance was higher. The percentage of young within the wintering population also showed negative density-dependence. Inter-annual variance in mean swan brood size was best explained by a model comprised of the negative degree days during the swan breeding period, mean pair-bond duration of all paired swans (i.e. mean pair duration), and an interaction between these two variables. In particular, mean pair duration had a strong positive effect on mean brood size. However, we found no long-term directional trend in either measure of breeding success, despite the recent decline in the NW European population. Our results highlight that inter-annual variability in breeding success is sensitive to the combined effects of both intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Wood et al 2016 Bewick Swan breeding success paper dataA Microsoft Excel spreadsheet containing the raw and standardized values for all variables used in the analysis of Bewick's Swan breeding success. The data cover the period 1988-2013. A legend describing the identity of each variable is also included. Further information on the data analysis is available in the published paper.Wood et al 2016 Data for Dryad.xlsx

Display service for the record from https://www.deutschlandatlas.bund.de : Averaged population growth between 2015 and 2020 per year in %. The population development reflects both the number of migrations and the natural population change due to the births and deaths of a municipality. It is striking that municipalities in West German federal states experienced a population increase between 2015 and 2020, whereas municipalities in East German federal states mainly recorded declining population figures.

The world's population first reached one billion people in 1803, and reach eight billion in 2023, and will peak at almost 11 billion by the end of the century. Although it took thousands of years to reach one billion people, it did so at the beginning of a phenomenon known as the demographic transition; from this point onwards, population growth has skyrocketed, and since the 1960s the population has increased by one billion people every 12 to 15 years. The demographic transition sees a sharp drop in mortality due to factors such as vaccination, sanitation, and improved food supply; the population boom that follows is due to increased survival rates among children and higher life expectancy among the general population; and fertility then drops in response to this population growth. Regional differences The demographic transition is a global phenomenon, but it has taken place at different times across the world. The industrialized countries of Europe and North America were the first to go through this process, followed by some states in the Western Pacific. Latin America's population then began growing at the turn of the 20th century, but the most significant period of global population growth occurred as Asia progressed in the late-1900s. As of the early 21st century, almost two thirds of the world's population live in Asia, although this is set to change significantly in the coming decades. Future growth The growth of Africa's population, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, will have the largest impact on global demographics in this century. From 2000 to 2100, it is expected that Africa's population will have increased by a factor of almost five. It overtook Europe in size in the late 1990s, and overtook the Americas a decade later. In contrast to Africa, Europe's population is now in decline, as birth rates are consistently below death rates in many countries, especially in the south and east, resulting in natural population decline. Similarly, the population of the Americas and Asia are expected to go into decline in the second half of this century, and only Oceania's population will still be growing alongside Africa. By 2100, the world's population will have over three billion more than today, with the vast majority of this concentrated in Africa. Demographers predict that climate change is exacerbating many of the challenges that currently hinder progress in Africa, such as political and food instability; if Africa's transition is prolonged, then it may result in further population growth that would place a strain on the region's resources, however, curbing this growth earlier would alleviate some of the pressure created by climate change.

Bird populations are declining globally with losses recorded in many European breeding birds. Habitat management measures have not resulted in a widespread reversal of these declines. We analysed national bird population trends from ten European countries (France, Hungary, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK) in relation to the species’ nesting strategy (‘ground-nesting' or ‘other’), Annex I designation (‘designated’ or ‘not designated’) and association with agricultural habitats for breeding (‘associated’ or ‘not associated’). For each country in our dataset, we also defined the following factors: farming intensity; predator community complexity; and predator control effort. Our results showed additive effects of nesting strategy, designation, and breeding habitats on the likelihood of population decline. Ground-nesting birds were 86% more likely to decline than birds with other nesting strategies. Annex I designated species of the Birds Directive were 50% less likely to decline than non-designated birds. Birds breeding primarily in agricultural habitats were more likely to decline than birds breeding in other habitats, interactively with farming intensity. Homogenous trends across Europe (i.e., trends in two or more countries that were either not declining in all countries or declining in all countries) indicate that the probability of population decline was related to nesting strategy and breeding habitat, with ground-nesting birds being 15.6 times more likely than other birds to have a declining trend across Europe, and birds nesting in agricultural habitat being 17.8 times more likely than birds nesting in other habitats to have a declining trend across Europe. Our results highlight a widespread challenge, therefore widespread instruments (e.g. legislation, economic policies, agri-environment schemes) will be required to reserve these declines. Ground-nesting species requirements can be complex and multiple strategies will be needed to restore populations including the development of predation management tools. Methods Many countries provide data to the Pan-European Common Bird Monitoring Scheme (PECBMS). We explored the PECBMS web page and the links included therein for each country, to identify if national data on population trends for each species could be obtained. Finally, we obtained national trends data for 10 countries, namely France (FR), Hungary (HU), Ireland (IE), the Netherlands (NL), Poland (PL), Portugal (PT), Spain (ES), Sweden (SE), Switzerland (CH) and the UK (UK). Specifically, common bird species trends in France were obtained from the monitoring programs coordinated by the Natural History Museum (http://www.vigienature.fr/fr/resultats-especes-3367). These data provided a 20-year trend (1998-2018) for each species. Hungary data from the Monitoring Centre of the Hungarian Ornithological and Nature Conservation Association were available at https://mmm.mme.hu/charts/trends and provided species trends for the period 1999-2021. Data from Ireland were available at https://www.npws.ie/sites/default/files/publications/pdf/IWM115.pdf and provided trends for 1998-2016 for each species. Netherlands data were obtained from the monitoring programs carried out by SOVON, the Dutch Centre for Field Ornithology (https://www.vogelwarte.ch/assets/files/publications/upload2019/Zustand%20der%20Vogelwelt%20in%20der%20Schweiz_Bericht%202019_E_low.pdf). These data provided species trends from 1990 to 2016. Polish data were obtained from https://monitoringptakow.gios.gov.pl/database.html, and provided trends for each species for the period 2000-2019. Portuguese data (based on the program organised by the Sociedade Portuguesa para o Estudo das Aves, SPEA) were obtained from https://www.spea.pt/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/relatorio_cac_2021_vf3.pdf, as long-term (2004-2020) trends for each species. Data from Spain were obtained from the monitoring programs conducted by SEO/Birdlife (https://seo.org/boletin/seguimiento/boletin/2018/html5forpc.html?page=0), consisting of long-term trends (1998-2018) for each species. Data from Sweden, showing 1998-2022 trends for each species, were obtained from http://www.fageltaxering.lu.se/resultat/trender. Swiss data were obtained from the monitoring programs carried out by Vogelwarte, the Swiss Ornithological Institute (https://www.vogelwarte.ch/assets/files/projekte/entwicklung/zustandsbericht%202019/Zustandsbericht%202019_e_low.pdf) and consisted of 1990-2018 trends for each species. The UK data were obtained through monitoring programs at the British Trust of Ornithology (https://www.bto.org/our-science/publications/birdtrends/2020/species), providing long-term (1994-2020) trends for each species. In all cases, trends for each species were categorised according to European Bird Census Council (EBCC) definitions (see https://pecbms.info/methods/pecbms-methods/1-national-species-indices-and-trends/1-2-production-of-national-indices-and-trends/trend-interpretation-and-classification) as ‘important decline’, ‘moderate decline’, ‘stable’, ‘moderate increase’, ‘marked increase’ or ‘uncertain. We regrouped the categories as ‘decline’ (either important or moderate) or ‘no decline’, (stability, moderate or important increase, or uncertain trends) to obtain a binomial variable describing the decline probability of a given species in each country.

Bumble bees (Bombus) are vitally important pollinators of wild plants and agricultural crops worldwide. Fragmentary observations, however, have suggested population declines in several North American species. Despite rising concern over these observations in the United States, highlighted in a recent National Academy of Sciences report, a national assessment of the geographic scope and possible causal factors of bumble bee decline is lacking. Here, we report results of a 3-y interdisciplinary study of changing distributions, population genetic structure, and levels of pathogen infection in bumble bee populations across the United States. We compare current and historical distributions of eight species, compiling a database of >73,000 museum records for comparison with data from intensive nationwide surveys of >16,000 specimens. We show that the relative abundances of four species have declined by up to 96% and that their surveyed geographic ranges have contracted by 23–87%, some within the last 20 y. We also show that declining populations have significantly higher infection levels of the microsporidian pathogen Nosema bombi and lower genetic diversity compared with co-occurring populations of the stable (nondeclining) species. Higher pathogen prevalence and reduced genetic diversity are, thus, realistic predictors of these alarming patterns of decline in North America, although cause and effect remain uncertain. Bumble bees (Bombus) are integral wild pollinators within native plant communities throughout temperate ecosystems, and recent domestication has boosted their economic importance in crop pollination to a level surpassed only by the honey bee. Their robust size, long tongues, and buzz-pollination behavior (high-frequency buzzing to release pollen from flowers) significantly increase the efficiency of pollen transfer in multibillion dollar crops such as tomatoes and berries. Disturbing reports of bumble bee population declines in Europe have recently spilled over into North America, fueling environmental and economic concerns of global decline. However, the evidence for large-scale range reductions across North America is lacking. Many reports of decline are unpublished, and the few published studies are limited to independent local surveys in northern California/southern Oregon, Ontario, Canada, and Illinois. Furthermore, causal factors leading to the alleged decline of bumble bee populations in North America remain speculative. One compelling but untested hypothesis for the cause of decline in the United States entails the spread of a putatively introduced pathogen, Nosema bombi, which is an obligate intracellular microsporidian parasite found commonly in bumble bees throughout Europe but largely unstudied in North America. Pathogenic effects of N. bombi may vary depending on the host species and reproductive caste and include reductions in colony growth and individual life span and fitness. Population genetic factors could also play a role in Bombus population decline. For instance, small effective population sizes and reduced gene flow among fragmented habitats can result in losses of genetic diversity with negative consequences, and the detrimental impacts of these genetic factors can be especially intensified in bees. Population genetic studies of Bombus are rare worldwide. A single study in the United States identified lower genetic diversity and elevated genetic differentiation (FST) among Illinois populations of the putatively declining B. pensylvanicus relative to those of a codistributed stable species. Similar patterns have been observed in comparative studies of some European species, but most investigations have been geographically restricted and based on limited sampling within and among populations. Although the investigations to date have provided important information on the increasing rarity of some bumble bee species in local populations, the different survey protocols and limited geographic scope of these studies cannot fully capture the general patterns necessary to evaluate the underlying processes or overall gravity of declines. Furthermore, valid tests of the N. bombi hypothesis and its risk to populations across North America call for data on its geographic distribution and infection prevalence among species. Likewise, testing the general importance of population genetic factors in bumble bee decline requires genetic comparisons derived from sampling of multiple stable and declining populations on a large geographic scale. From such range-wide comparisons, we provide incontrovertible evidence that multiple Bombus species have experienced sharp population declines at the national level. We also show that declining populations are associated with both high N. bombi infection levels and low genetic diversity. This data was used in the paper "Patterns of widespread decline in North American bumble bees" published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of United States of America. For more information about this dataset contact: Sydney A. Cameron: scameron@life.illinois.edu James Strange: James.Strange@ars.usda.gov Resources in this dataset:Resource Title: Data from: Patterns of Widespread Decline in North American Bumble Bees (Data Dictionary). File Name: meta.xmlResource Description: This is an XML data dictionary for Data from: Patterns of Widespread Decline in North American Bumble Bees.Resource Title: Patterns of Widespread Decline in North American Bumble Bees (DWC Archive). File Name: occurrence.csvResource Description: File modified to remove fields with no recorded values.Resource Title: Patterns of Widespread Decline in North American Bumble Bees (DWC Archive). File Name: dwca-usda-ars-patternsofwidespreaddecline-bumblebees-v1.1.zipResource Description: Data from: Patterns of Widespread Decline in North American Bumble Bees -- this is a Darwin Core Archive file. The Darwin Core Archive is a zip file that contains three documents.

The occurrence data is stored in the occurrence.txt file. The metadata that describes the columns of this document is called meta.xml. This document is also the data dictionary for this dataset. The metadata that describes the dataset, including author and contact information for this dataset is called eml.xml.

Find the data files at https://bison.usgs.gov/ipt/resource?r=usda-ars-patternsofwidespreaddecline-bumblebees

In 2020, there were approximately 815,000 Polish nationals living in the United Kingdom, the most of any European Union member state. Additionally, there were 404,000 Romanians, and 321,000 Irish nationals living in the UK in this year. Luxembourg was the EU member state with the fewest citizens living in the UK, at just 520 in 2019. In terms of British nationals living in the EU, Spain was the most popular destination, at almost 285,000 Britons, followed by France and Germany, which had British populations numbering 145,000 and 110,000 respectively. The EU settlement scheme After the Brexit referendum of 2016, the fate of EU citizens living in the UK, as well as that of British nationals in the EU, was suddenly unclear. Although the rights of EU citizens to remain in the UK was affirmed at various points during the Brexit negotiations, the EU settlement scheme to handle this issue wasn't launched until 2019. As of March 2024, there have been almost 7.9 million applications to this scheme, with Romanian nationals being the most common nationality, followed by 1.23 million applications from Polish nationals, and 686,820 from Italian nationals. Migration still one of the top issues for voters In June 2024, immigration was seen as the third most important issue for voters, and was consistently ahead of many other issues in the months leading up to UK's 2024 general election. Net migration to the UK has risen sharply since 2021, reaching 745,000 in 2022, and remaining high in 2023. Although there has been a clear decline in net migration from EU nationals since the Brexit vote, there has been a far larger increase in non-EU net migration. Despite, pledging to bring immigration down, the previous Conservative government gradually lost trust on this issue with voters, with just 15 percent seeing them as the best party at dealing with immigration, compared with 20 percent who thought Labour would handle it best.

Crassostrea gigas originated from the Pacific coast of Asia but was introduced into several European countries in the early 1970s. Natural populations have now spread the length of the western seaboard of Europe. To elucidate the demographic and selective processes at play during this rapid expansion, genome-scan analysis was performed on different populations. High diversities and low differentiation were observed overall, but significant genetic differentiation was found among newly-established populations and between the newly-established northern group and a nearly panmictic group composed of southern European populations and a population from Japan. Loss of genetic diversity was also seen in the north, likely caused by founder events during colonisation. The few strongly supported outlier loci revealed a genetic structure uncorrelated with the north/south differentiation, but grouping two samples from the Danish Fjords (northern group) and one from the Dutch Scheldt estuary (southe...

The distylous plant Primula veris has long served as a model species for studying heterostyly, i.e., the occurrence of multiple floral morphs within a population to ensure outcrossing. Habitat loss, reduced plant population sizes, and climate change have raised concerns about the impact of these factors on morph ratios and the related consequences on fitness of heterostylous species. We studied the deviation of floral morphs of P. veris from isoplethy (i.e., equal frequency) in response to plant population size, landscape context and climatic factors, based on a pan-European citizen science campaign involving observations from 32 countries. In addition, we examined the relative frequency of morphs to determine whether landscape and climatic factors disrupt morph frequencies or whether a specific morph has an advantage over the other. Theory predicts equal frequencies of short-styled S-morphs and long-styled L-morphs in populations at equilibrium. However, data from > 3000 populations..., Data on the morph identity of Primula veris The dataset of heterostyly (i.e., whether the observed plant was of L- or S-morph; Barrett 2019) was collected by volunteer observers within the frames of the pan-European citizen science campaign "Looking for Cowslips" that took place in 2021 and 2022 (Looking for Cowslips). Citizens from the following countries contributed data: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine and the United Kingdom. Campaign participants were asked to provide information about the approximate size of the observed population (Small: some plants, up to 100 individuals; Medium: about 100-200 individuals; Large: more than 200 to thousands) and the morph identity of 100 randomly chosen cowslip individuals (fewer in case of small populations) occurrin..., , # Heterostyly data used in the paper "A pan-European citizen science study shows population size, climate and land use are related to biased morph ratios in the heterostylous plant Primula veris"

https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.k3j9kd5jj

Description of the data and file structure

The dataset represents information on the morph type of the heterostylous plant species Primula veris. It was collected by volunteer observers within the frames of the pan-European citizen science campaign "Looking for Cowslips" that took place in 2021 and 2022 (Looking for Cowslips). Campaign participants were asked to provide information about the approximate size of the observed population (Small: some plants, up to 100 individuals; Medium: about 100-200 individuals; Large: more than 200 to thousands) and the morph identity of 100 randomly chosen cowslip individuals (fewer in case of small populations) occurring at least 0.5...

1. The sudden loss of habitats due to natural or anthropogenic disturbances causes displacement of mobile animals from affected areas to refuge habitats, where large but often transitory concentrations of individuals may occur. While these local density increases have been previously described, the hypothesis that crowding disrupts demographic processes remains largely untested. 2. Here we used the sudden flooding of a river valley by a hydroelectric reservoir as a quasi-experiment to investigate the consequences of crowding on demography, fecundity, and social structure in the European free-tailed bat (Tadarida teniotis). 3. We monitored bat populations at roosts near and far from the flooded area, before (2013-2014), during (2015) and after (2016) habitat flooding. We assessed population demographic parameters using Capture-Mark-Recapture (CMR) models (3821 PIT-tagged individuals), and used genetic relatedness among individuals (1407 individuals genotyped for 14 microsatellite markers) to infer changes in social structure. 4. Habitat loss through flooding was associated with significant but transitory increases in the number of bats using nearby roosts. This may be related to the higher probability of individuals arriving at those roosts during flooding, together with increases in individual local residency through time, particularly among males. Individual apparent survival was highest during flooding and lowest in the following year, while the probability of leaving a roost safe from flooding was higher near the impact area than farther away. Crowding did not negatively affect fecundity, but the arrival of new individuals led to changes in social structure as revealed by lower genetic relatedness between individuals after disturbance at roosts near the flooding area, but not in those farther afield. 5. Our study documents a clear example of crowding effects, suggesting that bats losing roosts due to a hydroelectric reservoir moved to alternative roosts, where local increases in population size and the arrival of new individuals reduced genetic relatedness and apparent survival, but not fecundity. These results support the hypothesis that crowding after habitat loss can disrupt population processes, even though effects may be subtle and short-lived. Also, they point out the need to duly consider crowding effects when assessing and mitigating anthropogenic impacts on animal populations.

The cyclic population dynamics of vole and predator communities is a key phenomenon in northern ecosystems, and it appears to be influenced by climate change. Reports of collapsing rodent cycles have attributed the changes to warmer winters, which weaken the interaction between voles and their specialist subnivean predators. Using population data collected throughout Finland during 1986–2011, we analyse the spatio-temporal variation in the interactions between populations of voles and specialist, generalist and avian predators, and investigate by simulations the roles of the different predators in the vole cycle. We test the hypothesis that vole population cyclicity is dependent on predator–prey interactions during winter. Our results support the importance of the small mustelids for the vole cycle. However, weakening specialist predation during winters, or an increase in generalist predation, was not associated with the loss of cyclicity. Strengthening of delayed density dependence coincided with strengthening small mustelid influence on the summer population growth rates of voles. In conclusion, a strong impact of small mustelids during summers appears highly influential to vole population dynamics, and deteriorating winter conditions are not a viable explanation for collapsing small mammal population cycles.

Brexit marked a turning point in EU history. For the first time an EU member state left the EU, leading to concerns about the stability of the EU as a whole. Indeed, Brexit carried significant spillover effects in the other EU member states, both in terms of the loss of cooperation gains that disintegration entails, and for the risks of political contagion. To understand whether and how such spillover effects materialized during the Brexit withdrawal negotiations, we repeatedly fielded an EU-wide, six-wave cross-sectional survey in 6-month intervals between July 2017 and December 2019. The survey includes information on public opinion across 28 EU Member States including questions probing respondents’ attitudes towards the EU, perceptions of the Brexit process, as well as general political attitudes and demographic characteristics. The identities of all participants are anonymized. The final data includes weights based on language region, age, gender and party affinity in order to ensure representativeness. The data were collected by placing questions on an EU-wide online survey omnibus (the “EuroPulse”) that was regularly conducted by Dalia Research. In each wave, the sample consists of a census representative sample of approximately 10’000 working- age respondents (aged 18–69) from all EU member states, with sample sizes roughly proportional to their population size. While the overall sample is representative of the EU population, samples from France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, and the UK are also nationally representative.