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Policy makers and farmers need to know the status of farmland biodiversity in order to meet conservation goals and evaluate management options. Based on a review of 11 monitoring programs in Europe and North America and on related literature, we identify the design choices or attributes of a program that balance monitoring costs and usefulness for stakeholders. A useful program monitors habitats, vascular plants, and possibly faunal groups (ecosystem service providers, charismatic species) using a stratified random sample of the agricultural landscape, including marginal and intensive regions. The size of landscape samples varies with the grain of the agricultural landscape; for example, samples are smaller in Europe and larger in North America. Raw data are collected in a rolling survey, which distributes sampling over several years. Sufficient practical experience is now available to implement broad monitoring schemes on both continents. Technological developments in remote sensing, metagenomics, and social media may offer new opportunities for affordable farmland biodiversity monitoring and help to lower the overall costs of monitoring programs.

Agriculture is one of the main causes for the strong declines in biodiversity over the last decades. To protect and promote farmland biodiversity effectively, politicians and farmers need information about the status and dynamics of biodiversity on agricultural land. We reviewed a number of large monitoring programs in Europe and North America and investigated design decisions, monitoring costs and informative value for stakeholders. Useful programs focus on the landscape scale and investigate the state and dynamics of habitats and one or better several organism groups, mainly plant species and faunal groups if financially feasible. They sample raw data stratified over intensive and remote areas and distribute one sample continuously over several years. Landscape sample units seem to be related to the grain size of the agricultural landscapes; they are smaller in Europe than in North America. To lower the costs of biodiversity monitoring programs remote sensing and genomic and citizen science approaches experience a high attention and will hopefully deliver good opportunities in the near future. One of the recently implemented programmes is the Swiss Farmland Biodiversity Monitoring programme "ALL-EMA". To assess the state and the dynamics of species with a focus on habitats of the agri-environmental targets in Switzerland, a sampling design with weighted random sampling at several levels was used. Based on a highly standardized habitat mapping with a habitat key for reproducible recording, habitats of specific interest are sampled more intensively than other habitats. Synergies with the biodiversity monitoring of Switzerland allow ALL-EMA to use butterfly and bird data in addition to the recorded plant and habitat data. The electronic field data assessment allows a standardized, fast data processing. In 2020, the first main report about the state of farmland habitats and species is expected. Herzog F., Franklin J.: State-of-the-art practices in farmland biodiversity monitoring for North America and Europe. Ambio, 45, (8), 2016, 857-871. ; peerReviewed

Blinatumomab is the first-and-only Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved cluster of differentiation (CD) 19-directed CD3 bispecific T-cell engager (BiTE(®)) immunotherapy. It is currently FDA approved for the treatment of adults and children with Philadelphia chromosome-positive (Ph+) and Philadelphia chromosome-negative (Ph−) relapsed/refractory (R/R) B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and B-cell precursor ALL with minimal residual disease. Similarly, initial marketing authorization for blinatumomab in the European Union was granted for the treatment of adults with Ph− R/R B-cell precursor ALL. The benefits of treating R/R B-cell precursor ALL patients with blinatumomab include increased overall survival, more favorable hematologic remission and molecular response rates, and a lower incidence rate of selected adverse events when compared with standard-of-care chemotherapy. The key risks associated with blinatumomab treatment include cytokine release syndrome, neurotoxicity, and medication errors. Here, we review the benefits and risks of blinatumomab treatment and describe how these risks can be mitigated.

In response to growing demand for ecosystem-level risk assessment in biodiversity conservation, and rapid proliferation of locally tailored protocols, the IUCN recently endorsed new Red List criteria as a global standard for ecosystem risk assessment. Four qualities were sought in the design of the IUCN criteria: generality; precision; realism; and simplicity. Drawing from extensive global consultation, we explore trade-offs among these qualities when dealing with key challenges, including ecosystem classification, measuring ecosystem dynamics, degradation and collapse, and setting decision thresholds to delimit ordinal categories of threat. Experience from countries with national lists of threatened ecosystems demonstrates well-balanced trade-offs in current and potential applications of Red Lists of Ecosystems in legislation, policy, environmental management and education. The IUCN Red List of Ecosystems should be judged by whether it achieves conservation ends and improves natural resource management, whether its limitations are outweighed by its benefits, and whether it performs better than alternative methods. Future development of the Red List of Ecosystems will benefit from the history of the Red List of Threatened Species which was trialed and adjusted iteratively over 50 years from rudimentary beginnings. We anticipate the Red List of Ecosystems will promote policy focus on conservation outcomes in situ across whole landscapes and seascapes.