Can protected areas and habitats preserve the vulnerable predatory bush cricket Saga pedo?

Abstract

Inconspicuous species challenge conservationists when it comes to delineate long-term conservation planning or assess their status, particularly when their actual distribution is poorly known. Invertebrates in particular feature among the less represented taxa in conservation assessments. Here we follow a multidisciplinary approach for assessing the conservation coverage and address future management of the threatened orthopteran Saga pedo across Europe, shedding light on its ecological preferences and associations with protected habitats at continental and regional scales. When assessing coverage by Natura2000 and Nationally Protected Areas, we found that ca. 30% of the known populations of the species are currently not protected across Europe. However, this value is likely to be an underestimate as our species distribution models showed that ca. 70% of the potential range is not protected. At regional scale, we disclose that the species is more likely to occur in legally protected dry grassland habitat types than in non-protected grassland, yet not all protected habitats seem to represent an effective tool for the species’ conservation. Implications for insect conservation Taken together, our results provide an effective framework for addressing knowledge gaps and evaluate the conservation coverage not only of our target species, but more in general of poorly investigated species, at the same time pointing at the urgent need of transnational, coordinated, and increased efforts in monitoring and conserving insects, particularly in the case of threatened species.

The missing piece of the puzzle: A new and widespread species of the genus Rhynchocalamus Günther, 1864 (Squamata, Colubridae) from the Arabian Peninsula

“…We built and evaluated our Species Distribution Models (SDMs) using the sdm package (Naimi and Araújo 2016) in R environment (R vers. 4.3.2; R Core Team 2024), using three different modelling techniques: Generalized Linear Models (GLMs), Random Forests (RFs), and Maximum Entropy Models (Maxent), as they are considered the best-performing ones (Kaky et al 2020;Ancillotto and Labadessa 2023). To run the presencebackground SDMs, we randomly generated 10,000 background points selected within the study area.…”

Ecology and abundance of a relict population of the bush cricket Saga pedo in the Northern Apennines, Italy

“…This, coupled with significant agricultural intensification and urbanization, has led to a dramatic decrease in seminatural grasslands. Moreover, the use of pesticides has further contributed to the reduction of S. pedo 's prey, thereby indirectly impacting the species' survival (Ancillotto & Labadessa, 2023). Pesticides can also directly impact S. pedo (Krištin & Kaňuch, 2007).…”