No abstract

Lucanus cervus is one of the most charismatic saproxylic beetles, widely distributed in Europe. The species is typical of mature deciduous forests, especially oak woodlands. Loss and fragmentation of suitable habitats is one of the major threats for this species which is included in Annex II of the Habitats Directive. Despite several studies carried out in the last years for the monitoring methods of the species, an analytical comparison between them is still lacking.The aims of this paper are (i) to review the current knowledge about systematics, ecology and conservation practices on L. cervus and (ii) to present the research carried out during the Life MIPP project, in order to define a standard monitoring method with a suitable protocol to be used for addressing the obligations of the Habitats Directive. Overall, five methods were tested during three years in two different study areas. Based on these results, a suitable standard method for L. cervus is proposed in this paper and, in order to assess the conservation status of populations and to compare them over time, a simple method for the calculation of a reference value is provided.

Abstract. 1. The stag beetle, Lucanus cervus (Linnaeus, 1758) (Coleoptera: Lucanidae), is a flagship species for the conservation of European old-growth forests. Despite its popularity and many studies conducted, the lack of knowledge of its habits and ecological requirements leads to difficulties in locating the species in the field and to provide information for suitable planning conservation actions suitable for the species.2. In order to gather information on dispersal ability and space use, a radiotelemetry study was conducted in a relict floodplain forest surrounded by intensively cultivated land. During 2014 and 2015, from May to July, 55 beetles (34 males, 21 females) were radio-tagged, and 9 of these (7 males, 2 females) were telemetered immediately after the emergence from their development sites, by means of emergence traps.3. The use of radio-telemetry allowed to detect the oviposition sites and to study the first part of the adult life, when they resulted to be more active. Males were more prone to disperse than females but the home range size did not differ between the sexes. Dividing the season in three intervals, the most active individuals were recorded during the first and the second ones (first and second half of June).

No abstract

The implementation of conservation actions\ud requires a reliable assessment of presence and/or abundance\ud of targeted species. This is particularly difficult\ud for rare and elusive species. In this study the use of bottle\ud traps and the effects of two potential baits in relation to\ud height in the trees were tested to detect presence and assess\ud abundance of stag beetles (Lucanidae) and flower chafers\ud (Scarabaeidae, Cetoniinae), an important component of forest\ud biodiversity. The study was carried out in a flood-plain\ud forest of northern Italy. Forty-eight handcrafted traps were\ud assigned to two height categories (1.5–2 m and 10–20 m)\ud and three kinds of bait: (i) red wine, white wine and sugar,\ud (ii) red wine, beer and mashed banana, (iii) no bait, as control.\ud Fieldwork lasted 8 weeks, with 32 surveys, from May to July. Overall, we recorded 399 captures of the following\ud species: Dorcus parallelipipedus, Lucanus cervus, Cetonia\ud aurata, Protaetia speciosissima, P.affinis, P. morio and P.\ud cuprea. Traps baited with red wine, white wine and sugar\ud showed the highest detection probabilities for all the species.\ud A clear preference for the canopy layer (traps between\ud 10 and 20 m high) was shown by all species except for D.\ud parallelipipedus which was mostly captured between 1.5\ud and 2  m of height. The study period was long enough to\ud improve ecological knowledge on species phenology, but\ud not enough to include the whole phenology for all of them.\ud The method allowed the assessment of population size only\ud for flower chafer

Several specimens of the myrmecophilous beetle Paussus favieri were reared in ant nests of Pheidole pallidula. Their interactions were recorded and all behaviors observed are described. Duration and frequency of five behaviors of P. favieri were analyzed with ANOVA and post hoc Tukey tests; these comprised rewarding, antennal shaking, antennation, escape, and "no contact". Significant differences both in duration and in frequency among behaviors were detected. The main result is that the rewarding behavior, during which the beetle provides attractive substances to the host, is performed significantly more frequently than all others. This result strongly supports the hypothesis that the chemicals provided by the beetles and licked by the ants are of great importance for the acceptance and the full integration of P. favieri in the ant society. This result also suggests that, contrary to previous findings and interpretations, the myrmecophilous strategy of P. favieri is very similar to the symphilous strategy described for P. turcicus. The occasional interactions of some beetle specimens with the P. pallidula queen were recorded, illustrated, and discussed, indicating the possibility of a more complex strategy of P. favieri involving a chemical mimicry with the queen. In addition, the courtship performed by the beetle is described for the first time, together with a peculiar "cleaning" behavior, which we hypothesize functions to spread antennal chemicals over the body surfaces.

Ants use various communication channels to regulate their social organisation. The main channel that drives almost all the ants’ activities and behaviours is the chemical one, but it is long acknowledged that the acoustic channel also plays an important role. However, very little is known regarding exploitation of the acoustical channel by myrmecophile parasites to infiltrate the ant society. Among social parasites, the ant nest beetles (Paussus) are obligate myrmecophiles able to move throughout the colony at will and prey on the ants, surprisingly never eliciting aggression from the colonies. It has been recently postulated that stridulatory organs in Paussus might be evolved as an acoustic mechanism to interact with ants. Here, we survey the role of acoustic signals employed in the Paussus beetle-Pheidole ant system. Ants parasitised by Paussus beetles produce caste-specific stridulations. We found that Paussus can “speak” three different “languages”, each similar to sounds produced by different ant castes (workers, soldiers, queen). Playback experiments were used to test how host ants respond to the sounds emitted by Paussus. Our data suggest that, by mimicking the stridulations of the queen, Paussus is able to dupe the workers of its host and to be treated as royalty. This is the first report of acoustic mimicry in a beetle parasite of ants.

Osmoderma eremita (Scopoli, 1763) is a saproxylic scarab beetle protected by the Habitats Directive in the European Union. The present paper is part of a special issue on monitoring of saproxylic beetles protected in Europe and starts with a revision of the current knowledge on systematics, ecology, ethology and conservation of O. eremita and its allied species, followed by experimental tests of different methods for monitoring its populations. Two methods were compared in several localities of central Italy: (1) the widely used pitfall traps into tree cavities and (2) black cross windows traps baited with a specific pheromone produced by male beetles. The first method, often used in northern and central Europe, did not give acceptable results in Italy probably because of the scarcity of veteran trees with large hollows. It could only be used successfully in areas where: 1) tree hollows were abundant, large enough and with sufficient amounts of wood mould for planting pitfall traps and 2) the team is composed of several operators in order to ensure the checking of at least 150 traps every two days during the whole period of mating activities (15 July-25 August). The second method, consisting of hanging 30 black cross window traps during the mating period and checking them every two days, turned out to be better for capturing a significant number of individuals but cannot be used every year because of the possible disturbance on mating activities of the species. CONSERVATION IN PRACTICE Launched to accelerate biodiversity conservation A peer-reviewed open-access journalEmanuela Maurizi et al. / Nature Conservation 20: 79-128 (2017) 80