Despite more than 250 years of taxonomic research, we still have only a vague idea about the true size and composition of the faunas and floras of the planet. Many biodiversity inventories provide limited insight because they focus on a small taxonomic subsample or a tiny geographic area. Here, we report on the size and composition of the Swedish insect fauna, thought to represent roughly half of the diversity of multicellular life in one of the largest European countries. Our results are based on more than a decade of data from the Swedish Taxonomy Initiative and its massive inventory of the country's insect fauna, the Swedish Malaise Trap Project The fauna is considered one of the best known in the world, but the initiative has nevertheless revealed a surprising amount of hidden diversity: more than 3,000 new species (301 new to science) have been documented so far. Here, we use three independent methods to analyze the true size and composition of the fauna at the family or subfamily level: (1) assessments by experts who have been working on the most poorly known groups in the fauna; (2) estimates based on the proportion of new species discovered in the Malaise trap inventory; and (3) extrapolations based on species abundance and incidence data from the inventory. For the last method, we develop a new estimator, the combined non-parametric estimator, which we show is less sensitive to poor coverage of the species pool than other popular estimators. The three methods converge on similar estimates of the size and composition of the fauna, suggesting that it comprises around 33,000 species. Of

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The Nearctic gall midge Obolodiplosis robiniae (Diptera Cecidomyiidae) infesting Robinia pseudoacacia was detected in Asia in 2002 and in Europe in 2003. Its distribution in Europe has been favored by extensive distribution of its host plant along the main routes. The results of a 3-yr study on the seasonal abundance of O. robiniae in Italy are reported. O. robiniae can complete 3-4 generations per year. Overwintering takes place as diapausing larvae. Two generations are completed on mature plants in spring and two additional generations can develop on root suckers in summer. Population densities can reach high levels in late spring. Parasitism by the platygastrid Platygaster robiniae is particularly significant and contributes to maintain pest densities at acceptable levels

Seven species new to science are described and their affinities discussed, viz. Platygaster baezi (Canary Islands), P. fennica (Finland and Sweden), P. koponeni (Finland and Denmark), P. martikaineni (Finland and Denmark), P. marttii (Finland), Synopeas koponeni (Canary Islands), and S. suomiana (Finland). The hitherto unknown female of Platygaster danielssoni Buhl, 1998, and the hitherto unknown male of P. tenerifensis Buhl, 2001 are described.

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