Issue 3 Spring 2004 Het News nd 2 Series Newsletter of the Heteroptera Recording Schemes Editorial: There is a Dutch flavour to this issue which we hope will be of interest. After all, The Netherlands is not very far as the bug flies and with a following wind there could easily be immigrants reaching our shores at any time. We have also introduced an Archive section, for historical articles, to appear when space allows. As always we are very grateful to all the providers of material for this issue and, for the next issue, look forward to hearing about your 2004 (& 2003) exploits, exciting finds, regional news, innovative gadgets etc. Sheila Brooke 18 Park Hill Toddington Dunstable Beds LU5 6AW [email protected] Bernard Nau 15 Park Hill Toddington Dunstable Beds LU5 6AW [email protected] Contents Editorial .................................................................... 1 Forthcoming & recent events ................................. 7 Dutch Bug Atlas....................................................... 1 Checklist of British water bugs .............................. 8 Recent changes in the Dutch Heteroptera............. 2 The Lygus situation............................................... 11 Uncommon Heteroptera from S. England ............. 5 Web Focus.............................................................. 12 News from the Regions ........................................... 6 From the Archives ................................................. 12 Gadget corner – Bug Mailer...................................... 7 Review Verspreidingsatlas Nederlandse wantsen (Hemiptera: Heteroptera) Deel I: Dipsocoromorpha, Nepomorpha, Gerromorpha & Leptopodomorpha B. Aukema, J.G.M. Cuppen, N. Nieser & D Tempelman: 169pp, 2002 The first volume of this Dutch bug species – Arctocorisa carinata, Callicorixa Atlas deals with the water bugs. The wollastoni, and Corixa iberica. The fourth, text is in Dutch, making life difficult for surprisingly, is Sigara dorsalis, one of our most of us Brits, but there are commonest corixids, whose niche is distributions maps for each species, occupied there by S. striata, which only plotted before and after 1980, making creeps into the extreme SE corner of comparisons possible between our England. The other two are S. venusta and shared species. There are also S. fallenoidea, the latter occurring in Ireland. seasonal histograms for each species Interestingly our fairly widespread and some excellent illustrations of Micronecta poweri is very scarce in The bugs at the beginning of each section. Netherlands while their M. minutissima is There is a checklist for the country as widespread, but not common. In Britain M. a whole and also for the individual minutissima is becoming more widespread provinces of The Netherlands. There in the south, perhaps due to recorder effort. is a comprehensive list of references. M. griseola, as noted in the following article The series apparently follows the by Dr B. Aukema, is also a recent addition sequence used in the Palaearctic Catalogue, in which to their fauna and we both have only a handful of the water bugs appear at the beginning, after known sites as yet. Hesperocorixa moesta is also rare Ceratocombus and Cryptostemma. This first volume there while here it is widespread, albeit in the south. combines these with the traditional water species and For most of the other corixids the distribution pattern is the saldids. Water bugs, as we know them, come last in fairly similar in both regions. Southwood & Leston (1959) and have usually been There are 4 corixids in the Netherlands that do not treated as a separate group here but, perhaps, we occur in Britain, S. hellensii and Cymatia rogenhoferi, should now adopt the European practice — after all, the which are both rare, and unlikely to spread to here yet, additional species are mostly associated with water or S. longipalis, a little more common, and S. iactans, damp places. which has increased its range, is well distributed in the In Britain there are 6 corixids that do not occur in Netherlands, especially in coastal areas, and may The Netherlands, 3 of which are northern/high altitude reach Britain in the near future. It resembles S. falleni HetNews Spring 2004 1 with its somewhat similarly shaped, large palae. V. saulii are more common here, the latter, Ilyocoris cimicoides is common in The Netherlands predominantly a northern species, is rare in The and also in southern Britain, while Naucoris maculatus, Netherlands. which has occurred in the Channel Islands, is present in In both regions Gerris lacustris is the commonest The Netherlands but is rare and decreasing. gerrid and while the Dutch Aquarius paludum is Aphelocheirus aestivalis is widespread in Britain, widespread, but not common, ours is limited to the especially in the south, but is known only in the extreme south east. The opposite is true of G. lateralis, the SE Netherlands. Dutch having very few while here it is widespread, but Our 4 notonectids also occur in The Netherlands but not common. Limnoporus rufoscutellatus occurs they have a further 2 species, the rare Notonecta sparingly in the Netherlands and here it is an Irish reuteri which has declined since 1980, and Notonecta species with the occasional presumed continental lutea which is fairly widespread and may be one to look migrant being found on mainland Britain. out for. It ranges eastwards from The Netherlands to It is interesting to compare our species and the Caspian Sea. Plea minutissima is in both countries, distributions with a near neighbour. There are many as is Mesovelia furcata, but the latter has a southern similarities, which is to be expected, and there are distribution in Britain. Hebrus pusillus and H. ruficeps several differences, the strangest being the total lack of are both widespread in The Netherlands but the former S. dorsalis in The Netherlands. At least they do not is uncommon in Britain. have to contend with dorsalis/striata intermediates! The Dutch Hydrometra gracilenta and Microvelia In a future issue of Het News we will try to include a buenoi are fairly widespread, unlike in Britain where the description of the species that might turn up in Britain. species are only known in a few areas. Velia caprai and Sheila Brooke ************************ Recent changes in the Dutch Heteroptera ...........................................Berend Aukema Currently, 610 species of Heteroptera are known Turnover of species is a natural process but it is from the Netherlands and Table 1 shows how the also clear that Man has contributed greatly to the total has increased over the last 150 years. The changes in the Dutch heteropteran fauna through Dutch database of the European Invertebrate Survey habitat changes, international trade and global contains 130,000 Dutch records (combinations of warming. Table 3 shows that although at least four locality & species). These records are strongly biased new arrivals have resulted from importation in plant towards aquatic and semi-aquatic species: material, the majority appear to have benefitted from • 72,761 records of 64 aquatic spp, global warming. • 55,375 records of 545 terrestrial spp. Since about 1850 there have always been Dutch heteropterists but collecting effort has varied greatly with both time and geography. It is, for instance, easy to see from distribution maps the home and holiday resorts of heteropterists! The ‘appendage’ in the SE corner of the map of The Netherlands is an area with a more continental climate and it is often here that new species first appear. Table 1 Netherlands species totals Date Spp known Date Spp known 1853 119 species 1900 410 species 1862 200 species 1951 488 species 1879 283 species 1989 588 species Changes in the species composition since 1960 have been analysed and show that the number of species recorded since 1960 is: • 571spp (93.6% of total) recorded. • 510spp (83.6% of total) are regular & 'resident’. The period 1980-2002 has been one of considerable change, involving 61 species. New arrivals considerably outnumber losses: • 27 new arrivals, • 27 rediscovered after long absence (i.e. no records during 1960-1980) , • 7 not recorded in this period. The 27 arrivals during 1980-2002 are listed in Table 3, with year of publication of the first report. Map 1 Distribution of terrestrial records HetNews Spring 2004 2 Discussion species may be overlooked and thus appear 'rare' or The vast majority of recent changes have been new 'obscure', especially if their habitat or foodplants are arrivals or range increases, especially since 1990 poorly known. Good examples of this in The (Tables 2 & 3). A similar pattern of change was Netherlands are Acetropis gimmerthalii and observed in British Heteroptera (Kirby et al., 2001) and Conostethus roseus. The former was collected only involves a fair number of the same species: once, pre-1878, and not again until rediscovered in Stephanitis takeyai Deraeocoris flavilinea 1989. It became clear that it occurs early in the season, Dichrooscytus gustavi Emblethis denticollis exclusively on Anthoxanthum odoratum. Since then it Liorhyssus hyalinus Metopoplax ditoinoides has been found in many localities. Similarly, Nysius graminicola Orsillus depressus Conostethus roseus was collected only twice, both pre- Stictopleurus abutilon S.punctatonervosus 1882, and not again until rediscovery in 1981 on Corynephorus canescens on dunes and other sandy Twenty-seven pre-1960 species were 'rediscovered' habitats, where it is not uncommon early in the season. post-1980,