The Red List Categories and the accompanying five criteria developed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) provide an authoritative and comprehensive methodology to assess the conservation status of organisms. Red List criterion B, which principally uses distribution data, is the most widely used to assess conservation status, particularly of plant species. No software package has previously been available to perform large‐scale multispecies calculations of the three main criterion B parameters [extent of occurrence (EOO), area of occupancy (AOO) and an estimate of the number of locations] and provide preliminary conservation assessments using an automated batch process. We developed ConR, a dedicated R package, as a rapid and efficient tool to conduct large numbers of preliminary assessments, thereby facilitating complete Red List assessment. ConR (1) calculates key geographic range parameters (AOO and EOO) and estimates the number of locations sensu IUCN needed for an assessment under criterion B; (2) uses this information in a batch process to generate preliminary assessments of multiple species; (3) summarize the parameters and preliminary assessments in a spreadsheet; and (4) provides a visualization of the results by generating maps suitable for the submission of full assessments to the IUCN Red List. ConR can be used for any living organism for which reliable georeferenced distribution data are available. As distributional data for taxa become increasingly available via large open access datasets, ConR provides a novel, timely tool to guide and accelerate the work of the conservation and taxonomic communities by enabling practitioners to conduct preliminary assessments simultaneously for hundreds or even thousands of species in an efficient and time‐saving way.

Under certain conditions, otherwise parasitic organisms may become beneficial to their host. Parasite-mediated heat and osmotic stress resistance have been demonstrated for Paramecium caudatum, infected by several species of parasitic bacteria of the genus Holospora. Here, using the micronucleus-specific bacterium Holospora undulata, we investigate how infection mediates the response of two genotypes (clones 'K8' and 'VEN') of P. caudatum to heat (35 1C) and osmotic (0.24% NaCl) stress. In contrast to previous findings, we find no evidence for heat stress protection in infected individuals. We do, however, show an effect of symbiont-mediated osmotic stress resistance for the K8 clone, with infected individuals having higher survival than their uninfected counterparts up to 24 h after the onset of salt exposure. Despite this, both infected and uninfected individuals of the VEN clone showed higher survival rates than clone K8 individuals under osmotic stress. Thus, it would seem that parasite-mediated stress protection is restricted to certain combinations of host genotypes and types of stress and does not represent a general phenomenon in this system.