Asilidae and Syrphidae (Insecta: Diptera) inhabiting beech forests in central Italy

The published dataset contains of 2,295 specimens corresponding to 86 known species belonging to two Diptera families: Asilidae (robber flies) and Syrphidae (hoverflies). These data were collected during several sampling sessions in the framework of the projects LIFE09 ENV/IT/000078 - Management of Forests, Carbon and Biodiversity (ManFor CBD) (2012, 2014) and LIFE17 ESC/IT/001 360 - Volunteers for monitoring forest biodiversity in the Italian Natura 2000 Network (LIFE ESC360) (2019) and an agreement between Sapienza Università di Roma and the Laboratorio Nazionale Tassonomia e Bioindicazione Invertebrati - Reparto Biodiversità Carabinieri di Verona (LanaBit) (2019).

Specimens were collected in two beech forests in Abruzzo region (central Italy), managed by Arma dei Carabinieri (Reparto Carabinieri Biodiversità di Castel di Sangro): “Foresta Demaniale Regionale Chiarano-Sparvera” (AQ) and “Vallone di Teve” in the Nature State Reserve “Monte Velino” (AQ). Moreover, the two areas overlap with the Natura 2000 Network: the first is partially included by the Special Area of Conservation (SAC) IT7110205 “Parco Nazionale d'Abruzzo”, the second by the SAC IT7110206 “Monte Sirente e Monte Velino” and the Special Protection Area (SPA) IT7110130 “Sirente Velino”.

The samplings were carried out through the installation of 17 Malaise traps and direct chasing with net. Traps were settled in transition areas of clearings among beech trees, at an altitude range from 1397 m to 1746 m above sea level.  

The checklist includes information on the taxonomy of the species (i.e., order, family, genus, species, authorship, references about taxa identifications), number of individuals, sex, sampling period, geographic position, habitat type (following EUNIS habitat classification 2021), sampling protocol, collector name, specialist name.

The terms used for the dataset fields follows the Darwin Core Maintenance Group. 2021. List of Darwin Core terms. Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/doc/list/http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/doc/list/http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/doc/list/. The harmonisation of the dataset concerning taxa, authorship, LSID and the massive upgrading of the related identifiers in Zenodo record was performed by the use of R script using respectively dplyr, taxize (Chamberlain and Szöcs, 2013) and zen4r (Blondel and Barde, 2020) packages.

The provided dataset of specimens collected in Valle di Teve will contribute to the inventory of insects included in the Management Plan of the Riserva Naturale Orientata Monte Velino (Reparto Carabinieri Biodiversità di Castel di Sangro).

Here we provide the checklist of Asilidae and Syrphidae species, with the aim of promoting the collection and publication of raw data and information on insect communities inhabiting the Italian Nature State Reserves. This dataset could be considered as the “point zero” to be implemented with future additional sampling campaigns.