New Records of Moths Elucidate the Importance of Forests as Biodiversity Hot-Spots in Central Mediterranean Landscapes (Lepidoptera)

Abstract

New records of moths elucidate the importance of forests as biodiversity hot-spots in central Mediterranean landscapes (Lepidoptera). In this paper we report new faunistic findings concerning 15 moth species collected in forested habitats of Calabria and Sicily regions, South Italy. Most interesting records concerned Eupithecia trisignaria and Orectis proboscidata, both recorded for the first time in southern Italy. Species with larval biology linked to the forest cover were locally common, whilst species linked to herbaceous plants and shrubs were often collected as singletons or in one locality, showing smaller populations. A study of a 658bp long sequence of the mitochondrial 5' cytochrome oxidase gene, subunit 1 (COI) (barcoding analysis) was performed for five species, two of them showing a divergence from closest populations near to 1%, one a 2% divergence from northern populations, and two other species a perfect identity with European populations. This study reinforced the role of forest habitats as biodiversity hot-spots in the Mediterranean Basin and the importance of the Italian peninsula for biodiversity conservation at European scale as an increased number of endemic or sub-endemic taxa and populations with endemic genetic lineages are recognized, underlining the existence of ongoing evolutionary processes. In the light of these results, faunistic surveys in forest ecosystems are strongly needed to define sustainable management strategies. KEY WORDS: barcoding, faunistic inventories, forest management, protected areas, Italy. SILVIA GRECO (*) (°)-ANNAMARIA IENCO (**)-MARCO INFUSINO (*) FRANCESCO LUIGI LEONETTI (*)-STEFANO SCALERCIO (*)

Abundance and Diversity of Macro-Moths in an Acer-Dominatedforest of the Pollino National Park, Southern Italy(lepidoptera Macroheterocera)

“…Very interesting is also the presence of Eupithecia inturbata and Cyclophora albiocellaria, two species with monophagous larvae on Acer (MIRONOV, 2003;HAUSMANN, 2004). These species are here at their southern range border in the Italian Peninsula (GRECO et al, 2018b), whilst N. rosariae and P. variabilis were also found southwards in other forest types where Acer trees are accessory species only (INFUSINO et al, 2017b(INFUSINO et al, , 2018bSCALERCIO and GRECO, 2018). Compared to the species assemblage sampled in the beech forest of the same Massif by INFUSINO and SCALERCIO (2018), the main difference of the Acer-dominated forest was the rarity of Operophtera fagata, very abundant in the beech forest and here represented with just two individuals, whilst most of the other species with larvae feeding on broadleaved trees are similarly abundant.…”

Climate warming drives divergence of montane butterfly communities in Southern Italy

“…Climate projections for the 21st century also show a significant warming and a general reduction of precipitation (Bucchignani et al 2016) for this geographic area. Moreover, it represents one of the most important glacial refugia for continental biota (Konnert and Bergmann 1995;Médail and Diadema 2009;Grill et al 2009;Andersen et al 2019), with a strong altitudinal gradient, hosting several populations of Lepidoptera at their southern range limit (Scalercio 2009;Infusino et al 2016;Greco et al 2018). According to available climatic scenarios, in this area, we can expect a very high rate of local extinctions along with the expected loss of habitat suitable for cold-adapted species (Scalercio 2009;Scalercio et al 2014).…”

Macroheterocera of a mixed Calabrian black pine-European beech forest of Sila Mountains (Italy) (Insecta: Lepidoptera)

“…Beech forests inhabit a well characterized moth fauna in southern Italy, enriched by the presence of several species of great biogeographic and conservation interest (INFUSINO et al, 2016;INFUSINO & SCALERCIO, 2018). The most characteristic is Operophtera fagata (Scharfenberg, 1805) (Geometridae) very abundant and present everywhere the beech growths, but also Watsonalla cultraria (Fabricius, 1775) (Drepanidae) and Ennomos quercinaria (Hufnagel, 1767) (Geometridae) are strictly linked to this forest type (INFUSINO & SCALERCIO, 2018). Calabrian black pine forests inhabit a very different moth fauna, also very interesting from a biogeographic and conservation point of view.…”