In December 2013, the European Union (EU) enacted the reformed Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for 2014–2020, allocating almost 40% of the EU's budget and influencing management of half of its terrestrial area. Many EU politicians are announcing the new CAP as “greener,” but the new environmental prescriptions are so diluted that they are unlikely to benefit biodiversity. Individual Member States (MSs), however, can still use flexibility granted by the new CAP to design national plans to protect farmland habitats and species and to ensure long-term provision of ecosystem services

Established under the European Union (EU) Birds and Habitats Directives, Natura 2000 is one of the largest international networks of protected areas. With the spatial designation of sites by the EU

Europe is one of the world's most densely populated continents and has a long history of human-dominated land- and seascapes. Europe is also at the forefront of developing and implementing multinational conservation efforts. In this contribution, we describe some top policy issues in Europe that need to be informed by high-quality conservation science. These include evaluation of the effectiveness of the Natura 2000 network of protected sites, implications of rapid economic and subsequent land-use change in Central and Eastern Europe, conservation of marine biodiversity and sustainability of fisheries, the effect of climate change on movement of species in highly fragmented landscapes, and attempts to assess the economic value of ecosystem services and biodiversity. Broad policy issues such as those identified are not easily amenable to scientific experiment. A key challenge at the science-policy interface is to identify the research questions underlying these problem areas so that conservation science can provide evidence to underpin future policy development.

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SUMMARY 1. Field data and results from laboratory rearing are combined to describe life cycles and food habits of the mayflies Paraleptophlebia gregalis and Ameletus n. sp., and the stoneflies Soyedina interrupts, Ostrocerca foersteri, Sweltsa fidelis and Calliperla luctuosa. 2. P. gregalis, A. n. sp., S. interrupts and O. foersteri have univoltine life cycles which are characterized by a high degree of plasticity. S. fidelis and C. luctuosa have semivoltine life cycles which are more tightly synchronized. 3. Laboratory feeding trials and field observations characterize P. gregalis as a collector, A. n. sp. as a scraper, O. foersteri and S. interrupta as shredders and C. luctuosa as a predator mainly of midge larvae. Late‐instar larvae of S. fidelis are believed to be scavengers. 4. Laboratory rearing yielded a negative correlation between growth rates (Y) and larval size in autumn (X) for S. interrupta. This indicates compensatory growth by small larvae in order to achieve synchronized emergence. The correlation can be described by the equation: Y = 0.0053–0.0036X (R2= 0.82; P < 0.01; n = 22) 5. The field and laboratory data indicate that photoperiod mainly determines the rate of development and size of emerging subimagos in P. gregalis.