Use of insect distribution across landscape-soil units to assess conservation priorities in a Mediterranean coastal reserve: the tenebrionid beetles of Castelporziano (Central Italy)

Abstract

We investigated the conservation concern of landscape-soil units within Castelporziano lowland forest (a natural reserve of 6,000 hectares facing the Tyrrhenian Sea) using tenebrionid species vulnerability as defined by the Kattan index, which is based on species rarity, and IUCN categories. Species rarity was evaluated according to various measures of geographical distribution, habitat specialization and population size on a regional level. Measures of species vulnerability were combined into two indexes of conservation concern for each landscape-soil unit: (1) the Biodiversity Conservation Concern index, BCC, which reflects the average rarity score of the species present in a site, and (2) the Biodiversity Conservation Weight, BCW, which reflects the sum of rarity scores of the same species assemblage. Because the same species was subject to multiple evaluations under different criteria, we obtained various series of BCC and BCW values. BCC and BCW provided complementary information and the use of different scoring schemes of species vulnerability produced correlated, but not identical conservation ranking in landscape-soil unit prioritization. Forests, wetlands and beach-dunes were identified as high priority units, whereas dry pastures, traditional crop mosaics, pinewoods and maquis/garrigue shrublands, were identified as mediumlow priority units. Tenebrionids were proved to be particularly useful as a bio-indicator group in coastal areas because they include both sand-dwelling and saproxylic species, being distributed, with distinct communities, in all coastal biotopes.

Assessing the distribution of forest ecosystem services in a highly populated Mediterranean region

“…Although many ES showed highest values in the mountainous and wet areas of the North of the study area, the distribution patterns of some ES and biodiversity variables support a high ecological value of forest-dominated landscapes located close to the Mediterranean coast. The relevance of these landscapes in the Mediterranean Region has been highlighted in previous studies, both from the perspective of biodiversity (e.g., Fattorini et al, 2015) and using ES-based approaches (e.g., Brenner et al, 2010), and may require special attention in conservation strategies and ES management.…”

Beetle Species–Area Relationships and Extinction Rates in Protected Areas

“…I also omitted synanthropic species [31]. Overall, I collected data from 23 Italian reserves (18 reserves for Carabidae [32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45], 14 reserves for Hydradephaga [32,33,35,[46][47][48][49][50], 18 reserves for Scarabaeoidea [32,33,35,37,49,[51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59], and 18 reserves for Tenebrionidae [32,33,35,37,54,[60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68...…”

Use of taxonomic and chorological diversity to highlight the conservation value of insect communities in a Mediterranean coastal area: the carabid beetles (Coleoptera, Carabidae) of Castelporziano (Central Italy)

“…This suggests that the transitional character of the low maquis, whose vegetation is intermediate between those of the beach-dune system and the high maquis, favours the occurrence of eurytopic carabid species that enhance the diversity of this biotopes, which, however, does not host stenotopic species. Thus, both low and high maquis appear to be biotopes of moderate conservation value for carabid beetles, as also found, on very different basis, for the tenebrionid beetles (Fattorini et al 2015).…”

“…Della Rocca et al 2001;Fattorini et al 2015), the following main biotopes can be recognised: (1) beach, (2) dunes, (3) low maquis, (4) high maquis, (5) wet woodlands, (6) natural (oak) forests, (7) man-made (mesophilous) forests, (8) wet zones and (9) steppes and cultivated plots (open areas). To compare the carabid communities associated with the aforementioned biotopes, a matrix of species presence-absence in each biotope was compiled using data presented in Vigna Taglianti et al (2001Taglianti et al ( , 2007 (Table 1).…”