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. 2015 Feb 20:(3):e4187.
doi: 10.3897/BDJ.3.e4187. eCollection 2015.

Fauna europaea: Diptera - brachycera

Thomas Pape  1 , Paul Beuk  2 , Adrian Charles Pont  3 , Anatole I Shatalkin  4 , Andrey L Ozerov  4 , Andrzej J Woźnica  5 , Bernhard Merz  6 , Cezary Bystrowski  7 , Chris Raper  8 , Christer Bergström  9 , Christian Kehlmaier  10 , David K Clements  11 , David Greathead  12 , Elena Petrovna Kameneva  13 , Emilia Nartshuk  14 , Frederik T Petersen  15 , Gisela Weber  16 , Gerhard Bächli  17 , Fritz Geller-Grimm  18 , Guy Van de Weyer  19 , Hans-Peter Tschorsnig  20 , Herman de Jong  21 , Jan-Willem van Zuijlen  22 , Jaromír Vaňhara  23 , Jindřich Roháček  24 , Joachim Ziegler  25 , József Majer  26 , Karel Hůrka  27 , Kevin Holston  28 , Knut Rognes  29 , Lita Greve-Jensen  30 , Lorenzo Munari  31 , Marc de Meyer  32 , Marc Pollet  33 , Martin C D Speight  34 , Martin John Ebejer  35 , Michel Martinez  36 , Miguel Carles-Tolrá  37 , Mihály Földvári  38 , Milan Chvála  27 , Miroslav Barták  39 , Neal L Evenhuis  40 , Peter J Chandler  41 , Pierfilippo Cerretti  42 , Rudolf Meier  43 , Rudolf Rozkosny  23 , Sabine Prescher  16 , Stephen D Gaimari  44 , Tadeusz Zatwarnicki  45 , Theo Zeegers  46 , Torsten Dikow  47 , Valery A Korneyev  13 , Vera Andreevna Richter  14 , Verner Michelsen  1 , Vitali N Tanasijtshuk  14 , Wayne N Mathis  47 , Zdravko Hubenov  48 , Yde de Jong  49
Affiliations

Fauna europaea: Diptera - brachycera

Thomas Pape et al. Biodivers Data J. .

Abstract

Fauna Europaea provides a public web-service with an index of scientific names (including important synonyms) of all extant multicellular European terrestrial and freshwater animals and their geographical distribution at the level of countries and major islands (east of the Urals and excluding the Caucasus region). The Fauna Europaea project comprises about 230,000 taxonomic names, including 130,000 accepted species and 14,000 accepted subspecies, which is much more than the originally projected number of 100,000 species. Fauna Europaea represents a huge effort by more than 400 contributing taxonomic specialists throughout Europe and is a unique (standard) reference suitable for many user communities in science, government, industry, nature conservation and education. The Diptera-Brachycera is one of the 58 Fauna Europaea major taxonomic groups, and data have been compiled by a network of 55 specialists. Within the two-winged insects (Diptera), the Brachycera constitute a monophyletic group, which is generally given rank of suborder. The Brachycera may be classified into the probably paraphyletic 'lower brachyceran grade' and the monophyletic Eremoneura. The latter contains the Empidoidea, the Apystomyioidea with a single Nearctic species, and the Cyclorrhapha, which in turn is divided into the paraphyletic 'aschizan grade' and the monophyletic Schizophora. The latter is traditionally divided into the paraphyletic 'acalyptrate grade' and the monophyletic Calyptratae. Our knowledge of the European fauna of Diptera-Brachycera varies tremendously among families, from the reasonably well known hoverflies (Syrphidae) to the extremely poorly known scuttle flies (Phoridae). There has been a steady growth in our knowledge of European Diptera for the last two centuries, with no apparent slow down, but there is a shift towards a larger fraction of the new species being found among the families of the nematoceran grade (lower Diptera), which due to a larger number of small-sized species may be considered as taxonomically more challenging. Most of Europe is highly industrialised and has a high human population density, and the more fertile habitats are extensively cultivated. This has undoubtedly increased the extinction risk for numerous species of brachyceran flies, yet with the recent re-discovery of Thyreophoracynophila (Panzer), there are no known cases of extinction at a European level. However, few national Red Lists have extensive information on Diptera. For the Diptera-Brachycera, data from 96 families containing 11,751 species are included in this paper.

Keywords: Biodiversity Informatics; Brachycera; Diptera; Fauna Europaea; Taxonomic indexing; biodiversity; taxonomy; zoology.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Fauna Europaea on-line (browser interfaces) and off-line (spreadsheets) data entry tools.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Fauna Europaea TDWG areas.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Fauna Europaea geographic coverage ('minimal Europe').
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Fauna Europaea Diptera–Brachycera species per family. See Table 1 for family statistics. For full resolution see Suppl. material 2.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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