Occurrences of protected species of insects in Italy

Data Records

The data in this occurrence resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 5,968 records.

This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.

Versions

The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.

How to cite

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

Campanaro A, Bardiani M, Hardersen S, Gisondi S, Lenzi A (2025). Occurrences of protected species of insects in Italy. Version 1.5. Council for Agricultural Research and Economics, Research Centre for Plant Protection and Certification. Occurrence dataset. https://cloud.gbif.org/eca/resource?r=protected_insects_of_italy&v=1.5

Rights

Researchers should respect the following rights statement:

The publisher and rights holder of this work is Council for Agricultural Research and Economics, Research Centre for Plant Protection and Certification. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC-BY-NC 4.0) License.

GBIF Registration

This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: ad5c93fc-905a-47c1-8208-bdbd7f960076.  Council for Agricultural Research and Economics, Research Centre for Plant Protection and Certification publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by Participant Node Managers Committee.

Keywords

Occurrence; Citizen science; Life project; Habitats Directive; Protected species; Species distribution

Contacts

Geographic Coverage

Italy

Taxonomic Coverage

All insects were identified to species

Temporal Coverage

Project Data

The Life Project “Monitoring of insects with public participation” (LIFE11 NAT/IT/000252) had as the main objective to develop and test methods for the monitoring of five beetle species listed in the Annexes of the Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC): Osmoderma eremita (hermit beetle, Scarabaeidae), Lucanus cervus (European stag beetle, Lucanidae), Cerambyx cerdo (great capricorn beetle, Cerambycidae), Rosalia alpina (rosalia longicorn, Cerambycidae) and Morimus asper/funereus (morimus longicorn, Cerambycidae). These developed methods are the result of extensive fieldwork and ensure scientific validity, ease of execution and limited labour costs. The data gathered represent an important contribution to the monitoring of these target species in Italy and the methods developed are intended for use by the local management authorities and staff of protected areas. The detailed description of methods and the results for each species are published in separate articles of this special issue of Nature Conservation (Carpaneto et al. 2017). A second objective of the project was to gather faunistic data with a Citizen Science approach, using the web and a mobile application software (app) specifically built for mobile devices. The validation of the records collected by the citizens was carried out by experts. Dissemination activities represented the principal way to contact and engage citizens for the data collection and also offered the possibility of providing information on topics such as Natura 2000, the Habitats Directive, the role of monitoring in nature conservation, the importance of forest ecosystems and the ecological role of the saproxylic insects. An innovative method tested during the project was the training of a dog for searching and monitoring the elusive hermit beetle; the trained dog also added a “curiosity” factor to attract public attention towards this rare insect and the issues mentioned above.

The personnel involved in the project:

Sampling Methods

Observations of individuals were conducted in the field both on occasional basis and as part of planned campaigns

Method step description:

1. Data have been collected by volunteers under a national citizen science project. Participants have been asked to search for the target species during their free-time or dedicated trips. The volunteers upload the data using a dedicated platform (website and mobile application Android/IOs) in which a number of mandatory information were required. Data enter a validation process, made by entomological experts (for correct species identification, spatial and temporal data). The validated records were published on the project website.

Bibliographic Citations

1. Carpaneto GM, Campanaro A, Hardersen S, Audisio P, Bologna MA, Roversi PF, Sabbatini Peverieri G, Mason F (2017) The LIFE Project “Monitoring of insects with public participation” (MIPP): aims, methods and conclusions. In: Carpaneto GM, Audisio P, Bologna MA, Roversi PF, Mason F (Eds) Guidelines for the Monitoring of the Saproxylic Beetles protected in Europe. Nature Conservation 20: 1-35. https://doi.org/10.3897/natureconservation.20.12761
2. Campanaro A, Hardersen S, Redolfi De Zan L, Antonini G, Bardiani M, Maura M, Maurizi E, Mosconi F, Zauli A, Bologna MA, Roversi PF, Sabbatini Peverieri G, Mason F (2017) Analyses of occurrence data of protected insect species collected by citizens in Italy. In: Carpaneto GM, Audisio P, Bologna MA, Roversi PF, Mason F (Eds) Guidelines for the Monitoring of the Saproxylic Beetles protected in Europe. Nature Conservation 20: 265-297. https://doi.org/10.3897/natureconservation.20.12704
3. Zapponi L, Cini A, Bardiani M, Hardersen S, Maura M, Maurizi E, Redolfi De Zan L, Audisio P, Bologna MA, Carpaneto GM, Roversi PF, Sabbatini Peverieri G, Mason F, Campanaro A (2017) Citizen science data as an efficient tool for mapping protected saproxylic beetles, Biological Conservation 208: 139-145 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2016.04.035
4. Redolfi De Zan L, Rossi de Gasperis S, Andriani V, Bardiani M, Campanaro A, Gisondi S, Hardersen S, Maurizi E, Mosconi F, Nardi G (2023) The Big Five: Species Distribution Models from Citizen Science Data as Tool for Preserving the Largest Protected Saproxylic Beetles in Italy. Diversity 15: 96 https://doi.org/10.3390/d15010096

Additional Metadata