ABSTRACT

Italy was likely the first country in the world to have a complete list of all the species of animals known for its territory, thanks to the project ‘Checklist delle Specie della Fauna d'Italia’. The project on the ‘Updated Checklist of the Italian Fauna’ started in 2020 and the process is now complete for the data on the superorder Neuropterida. In the period between the first and the most recent version of the checklist, the evolution of knowledge relating to the Italian territory was constantly updated every semester into the online repertoire edited by the author. Moreover an online English version within the “World Neuropterida Faunas” project was created and subsequently updated. This report discusses the thirty-year development of the overall and local knowledge of this group of insects in Italy, analyzing the strengths and shortcomings, together with the repercussions of the studies finalized for the protection and conservation of a territory within the Mediterranean area, a hotspot of world organic biodiversity.

Keywords:
Snakeflies; Alderflies; Lacewings; Checklist; Citizen Science

Introduction

When the pioneering work carried out towards the end of the last century, achieved thanks to the project ‘Checklist delle Specie della Fauna d'Italia’ (Minelli et al., 1993-1995), the animal biodiversity of our country was one of the first in the world to be exhaustively listed, photographing the situation of that period; even the knowledge relating to the Italian Neuropteridae finally had an overall framework for the whole national territory (Bernardi Iori et al., 1995Bernardi Iori, A., Kathirithamby, J., Letardi, A., Pantaleoni, R.A., Principi, M.M., 1995. Neuropteroidea (Megaloptera, Raphidioptera, Planipennia), Mecoptera, Siphonaptera, Strepsiptera. In: Minelli, A., Ruffo, S., La Posta, S. (Eds.), Checklist Delle Specie Della Fauna Italiana. Calderini Editore, Bologna.), cataloguing in a correct interpretation a scarce and very fragmentary number of faunal knowledge relating to this group of insects. That milestone faunal study has recently been updated and modernized by ‘Updated Checklist of the Italian Fauna’ started in 2020 by professors Bologna, Minelli et al., including the Neuropterida section (Bologna et al., 2022Bologna, M.A., Bonato, L., Cianferoni, F., Minelli, A., Oliverio, M., Stoch, F., Zapparoli, M., 2022. Towards the new Checklist of the Italian fauna. Biogeographia. J. Integr. Biog 37, ucl001. https://doi.org/10.21426/B637156271.
https://doi.org/10.21426/B637156271... ).

During the three decades between the first version of the Italian Neuropterida checklist and its recent update, the study of this group in Italy has undergone an acceleration and a huge change in visibility due to a combination of factors which the social media, the use of websites with an artificial intelligence approach and the widespread diffusion of a citizen science approach have concurred.

The aim of this contribution is to summarize the structure and the innovations present in the updated version of the Italian Neuropterida checklist, together with the main results related to the use of emerging information technologies and the participation of citizens in knowledge relating to these insects.

Material and methods

Main resources available between the two version of Checklist of Italian Neuropterida.

In the period between the first and the most recent version of the Checklist, the evolution of knowledge relating to the Italian territory was constantly updated every semester in an online repertoire visible at the URL http://neurotteri.casaccia.enea.it/ . Moreover, an online English version within the “World Neuropterida Faunas” (a project by John Oswald) was implemented and subsequently updated by me and Davide Badano (Letardi and Badano, 2017Letardi, A., Badano, D., 2017. Neuropterida of Italy. Lacewing Digital Library (Research Publication, 3) [first LDL version: 2017.01.31]). A turning point in this period was the realization, in 2005, of the ckMap project (Letardi, 2005Letardi, A., 2005. Insecta Neuroptera, Megaloptera e Raphidioptera. In: Ruffo, S., Stoch, F. (Eds.), Checklist e Distribuzione Della Fauna Italiana, Ministero dell’Ambiente e della Tutela del Territorio, Italy, pp. 235-236 (Memorie del Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Verona, 2 serie, Sezione Scienze della Vita 16).), with a modern graphic rendering of the fauna distribution, but with a still very limited number of data relating to our territory. In the quarter century between the first and second version of the checklist, an epochal revolution in the country was the explosion of citizen science and the participation of citizens in the discovery of nature (and also for Neuropterida) through social media. The production of the photographic atlas of the Italian Neuropterida in 2016 (Letardi, 2016Letardi, A. (Ed.), 2016. Atlante dei Neuropterida Della Fauna Italiana. Edizioni ENEA, Milano.) was the result of the collaboration between the few Italian specialists of this group of insects and a large audience of naturalists who shared their observations on the territory.

The consequence of greater attention and the development of knowledge relating to these insects has produced a marked increase in faunal studies both specifically dedicated to Neuropterida (carried out by a number of specialists that unfortunately remained rather limited) and dedicated to a broader survey of the biodiversity of specific areas. This made it possible to gradually enrich the faunal records.

Further increases for sharing faunal data about Italian Neuropterida are linked to specific surveys extracted from iNaturalist (https://www.inaturalist.org/), an online open community that allows to share observations to discuss, identify, and create research-quality citizen science data: “iNaturalist’s identification model” provides initial suggestions, but other people in the iNaturalist community may suggest alternative identifications or confirm the observations.

The new Checklist of Italian Neuropterida

The main features of the checklist in its current version includes 40 fields (Table 1).

Data set information

Object name: The new Checklist of the Italian Fauna: Neuropterida

Characters encoding: Unicode (UTF-8)

Data set citation: Pantaleoni R.A. and Letardi A., 2021. Neuropterida. In: Bologna M.A., Zapparoli M., Oliverio M., Minelli A., Bonato L., Cianferoni F., Stoch F. (eds), The new Checklist of the Italian Fauna. Version 1.0. Last update: 2021-05-31.

Format name: xml, Extensible Markup Language, for the online version at LifeWatch Italy.

Format version: 1.0

Distribution: https://dataportal.lifewatchitaly.eu/view/urn:uuid:c1f2ab37-61e4-48e9-b3a9-15bdbf002f9d

Date of creation: June 15th, 2020

Date of last revision: June 15th, 2020

Date of publication: July 23rd, 2021

Language: English

License of use: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Metadata language: English

Metadata managers: Marco A. Bologna, Lucio Bonato, Fabio Cianferoni, Alessandro Minelli, Marco Oliverio, Fabio Stoch, Marzio Zapparoli & LifeWatch Italy

Management details

Project title: The new Checklist of the Italian Fauna: Neuropterida

Database manager: Pantaleoni R.A.; Letardi A.; Marco A. Bologna, Lucio Bonato, Fabio Cianferoni, Alessandro Minelli, Marco Oliverio, Fabio Stoch, Marzio Zapparoli & LifeWatch Italy

Temporal coverage: Anything published until 15 June 2020.

Record basis: Published records in the scientific and grey literature.

Funding grants: No funding was specifically available for the project on Neuropterida; funding for the update of the Checklist of the Italian fauna was obtained from LifeWatch Italy.

Geographic information

General description: The data set includes records from the national territories of Italy, including the two major islands Sardinia and Sicily, and archipelagos and minor islands politically under the Italian legislation.

Geographic units: The geographical units within the Italian national territories for terrestrial records refer to the administrative boundaries of the 20 Italian regions, in addition to San Marino Republic and Vatican City. Continental Italy was also divided in two units, namely North (Friuli - Venezia Giulia, Veneto, Trentino - Alto Adige, Lombardia, Valle d'Aosta, Piemonte, Liguria, Emilia Romagna) and South (Toscana, Marche, Umbria, Lazio, Abruzzo, Molise, Campania, Puglia, Basilicata, Calabria).

Bounding box: All areas falling under Italian administration (in addition to San Marino Republic and Vatican City) from 35° 25' to 47° 06' N and from 6° 35' to 19° 20' E (WGS84 reference system) were included.

Sampling design: We did not perform any additional sampling to collect records of lacewing and their allies, but we used published data or verified personal communications.

Biogeographic region: Within the Palearctic region, according to the definitions of the European Environmental Agency (2017)European Environmental Agency, 2017. Biogeographical Regions in Europe. European Topic Centre on Biological Diversity (ETC/BD). Available in: https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/figures/biogeographical-regions-in-europe-2 (accessed 23 May 2021).
https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/... , the data set covers three European biogeographical regions: Alpine, Continental, and Mediterranean.

Countries: Italy, San Marino, Vatican City.

Quality control for geographic data: We checked that the georeferenced records and the published localities in the papers indeed matched the geographical units used for the checklist at the level of administrative regions.

Taxonomic information

General description: Only records reporting species or subspecies were included, disregarding records at higher levels like genus, family, etc.

Taxonomic coverage: Super order Neuropterida, intended in its traditional inclusion of Neuroptera, Raphidioptera, and Megaloptera (Bernardi Iori et al., 1995Bernardi Iori, A., Kathirithamby, J., Letardi, A., Pantaleoni, R.A., Principi, M.M., 1995. Neuropteroidea (Megaloptera, Raphidioptera, Planipennia), Mecoptera, Siphonaptera, Strepsiptera. In: Minelli, A., Ruffo, S., La Posta, S. (Eds.), Checklist Delle Specie Della Fauna Italiana. Calderini Editore, Bologna.).

Taxon specialists: Roberto A. Pantaleoni and Agostino Letardi.

Nomenclature: The adopted nomenclature followed the species names in the world checklist for Neuropterida (Oswald, 2007Oswald, J.D., 2007. Neuropterida Species of the World. Lacewing Digital Library (Research Publication, 1). [first LDL version: 2007.10.31]) and subsequent revisions. Species authorships follow the rules of art. 51.3 of the 4th edition of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, 1999International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, 1999. International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, 4th ed. The International Trust for Zoological Nomenclature, London. Available in: https://www.iczn.org/the-code/the-international-code-of-zoological-nomenclature/the-code-online/ (accessed 23 May 2021).
https://www.iczn.org/the-code/the-intern... ) for the use of parentheses.

Taxonomic remarks: Any taxonomic change that occurred since the publication of the previous checklist (Bernardi Iori et al., 1995Bernardi Iori, A., Kathirithamby, J., Letardi, A., Pantaleoni, R.A., Principi, M.M., 1995. Neuropteroidea (Megaloptera, Raphidioptera, Planipennia), Mecoptera, Siphonaptera, Strepsiptera. In: Minelli, A., Ruffo, S., La Posta, S. (Eds.), Checklist Delle Specie Della Fauna Italiana. Calderini Editore, Bologna.) is mentioned, according to the updated nomenclature of the Neuropterida.

Quality control for taxonomic data: Taxonomic data were checked and updated to include revision of names, synonyms, delimitation of genera and higher taxa, all conducted through a comparison with the world checklist for Neuropterida (Oswald, 2007Oswald, J.D., 2007. Neuropterida Species of the World. Lacewing Digital Library (Research Publication, 1). [first LDL version: 2007.10.31]) and subsequent revisions.

Results and discussion

The checklist updated to 2020 records the advancement of knowledge relating to the Italian fauna of the Neuropterida, which took place the last quarter of century.

This substantial increase in knowledge is not only the product of a number of faunal studies carried out by that small number of entomologists who study this “oligodiverse group” of insects in Italy (for a constant update of the actual scientific works in this country, refer to the bibliographic list available at the URL http://neurotteri.casaccia.enea.it/bibliografia.htm). The emergence of new IT tools, the constant collaboration of Italian entomologists specializing in Neuropterida in naturalistic forums and social media, and the increasing collaboration, national and international, in scientific projects of fauna studies and citizen science, are main factors behind this advancement in knowledge. If the checklist published in 1995 represented the systematization of previous knowledge almost exclusively due to professional entomologists, the picture, which we can reasonably consider very close to the real situation of the Italian biodiversity of Neuropterida, is the result of a careful and critical collaboration between specialists and a large number of passionate amateurs.

The comparison data presented (Table 2) provide a summary numerical comparison of this long and careful collaborative work. The consistent numerical increase of the taxa of the Chrysopidae family is due to a greater definition reached in recent years of the complex of sibling species previously considered as Chrysoperla gr. carnea; thus, there are other groups of species that will have a similar increases, in the near future, the biodiversity of Italian Neuropteridae (again in Chrysopidae, the probable complexes of species currently defined as Apertochrysa gr. prasina and A. gr. flavifrons, and in the Myrmeleontidae the revision of the genus Creoleon Tillyard, 1918 which could increase the number of taxa present in Italy).

Finally, it is possible that the minor detected family of dustywings (Coniopterygidae) may in the near future increase in the number of taxa recorded for Italy. The list of Neuropterida species currently reported for the Italian territory is detailed in Table 3.

Conclusion

The collaboration between active citizens and professional entomologists specialized in the study of Neuropterida is an example of how “citizen science” can have an important impact on the knowledge of biodiversity in the Italian territory. This collaboration has its most recent and promising development in a project specifically implemented in the iNaturalist web platform "European Neuropterida" (https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/european-neuropterida), which sees the contribution of several hundred active citizens (Figs. 1 and 2), in the awareness that only thanks to this fruitful interaction and integration of knowledge, we you can really get close to a complete picture of the biological richness of a territory.

Acknowledgments

Thank the ‘Comitato Scientifico per la Fauna d’Italia’, who pursued the updates for the checklist of the Italian Fauna. The financial support for the new “Checklist of the Italian fauna” was obtained from the Italian Fauna Scientific Committee (CSFI) (which is financially supported also by Accademia Nazionale Italiana di Entomologia, and Unione Zoologica Italiana) and from LifeWatch (which is financially supported by EU and National Research Council of Italy - CNR).

References

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