Post-fire insect fauna explored by crown fermental traps in forests of the European Russia

Abstract

Wildfires considerably affect forest ecosystems. However, there is a lack of data on the post-fire status of insect communities in these ecosystems. This paper presents results of a study conducted in 2019 which considered the post-fire status of the insect fauna in a Protected Area, Mordovia State Nature Reserve (Republic of Mordovia, centre of European Russia), considered as regional hotspot of insect diversity in Mordovia. We sampled insects on intact (unburned, control) and fire-damaged (burnt in 2010) sites and compared the alpha-diversity between sites. In total, we sampled and analysed 16,861 specimens belonging to 11 insect orders, 51 families and 190 species. The largest orders represented in the samples were Coleoptera (95 species), Diptera (54 species), Hymenoptera (21 species), and Neuroptera (11 species). Other insect orders were represented by between one and four species. The largest four orders (Coleoptera, Lepidoptera, Diptera and Hymenoptera) represented 96.7% of all studied specimens. We found that in the ninth year after low intensity surface fire damage, the insect diversity had returned to a similar level to that of the control (unburned) sites. Sites damaged by crown wildfire differed considerably from other sites in terms of a negative impact on both species diversity and the number of specimens. This indicates the serious effect of the crown fires on the biodiversity and consequent long-term recovery of the damaged ecosystem.

Seasonal Dynamics of Fruit Flies (Diptera: Drosophilidae) in Forests of the European Russia

“…Until recently, the fauna of the Drosophilidae of the Republic of Mordovia was totally unknown. The first paper with a short regional drosophilid faunistic list considered ecological questions of insect post-fire forest recovery [ 49 ]. This preliminary faunistic list includes 15 species in 6 genera of Drosophildae.…”

“…The influence of seasonal changes on the abundance of Drosophilidae has been studied mainly in tropical and temperate climatic zones. Their abundance in tropical regions is affected by precipitation, and in regions with a temperate climate, temperature fluctuations are most affected [ 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 ]. Our studies have shown that Drosophilidae in central Russia have one peak in numbers, which begins at the end of September with a maximum in mid-October.…”

Vertical Stratification and Seasonal Dynamics of Coleoptera in Open Biotopes of Forest Ecosystems (Centre of European Russia)

“…However, in the glade, the largest number of P. marmorata was obtained at heights from 2 to 6 m, with a maximum number at a height of 4 m. The larvae of this species develop in the hollows of dead deciduous trees [71,72]. Imagos are anthophiles and are often found on flowering plants and shrubs [73,74]. Apparently, the anthophilicity of this species is due to the high-height preference in open habitats.…”

An annotated list of the drosophilid flies (Diptera: Drosophilidae) of the Republic of Adygea

“…DISTRIBUTION. Widespread in Palearctic region (Bächli & Rocha Pité, 1984) and in the south of Russia (Gornostaev, 1997;Sidorenko, 2001), recently found in Mordovia (Ruchin et al, 2021;Gornostaev et al, 2022).…”