USE OF THE SYRPH THE NET DATABASE 2000 M.C.D.Speight, E.Castella & P. Obrdlik SYRPH THE NET: THE DATABASE OF EUROPEAN SYRPHIDAE (DIPTERA) Volume 25 Series Editors: Martin C.D.Speight, Emmanuel Castella, Petr Obrdlik & Stuart Ball USE OF THE SYRPH THE NET DATABASE 2000 M.C.D.Speight Research Branch, National Parks and Wildlife, 7 Ely Place, Dublin 2, Ireland E.Castella, Laboratoire d'Ecologie et de Biologie Aquatique, Université de Genève, 18 chemin des Clochettes, CH - 1206 GENEVE, SWITZERLAND P.Obrdlik WWF Auen Institut, Josefstraße 1, D-7550 RASTATT, GERMANY Syrph the Net: the database of European Syrphidae (Diptera) Volume 25 Speight, M.C.D., Castella, E., Obrdlik, P. and Ball, S. (eds.) 2000 compilation of the Syrph the Net database received funding from: contract STEP/CT90/0084 (Science and Technology for Environmental Protection), European Commission this publication may be referred to as: Speight, M.C.D., Castella, E. & Obrdlik, P. (2000) Use of the Syrph the Net database 2000. In: Speight, M.C.D., Castella, E., Obrdlik, P. and Ball, S. (eds.) Syrph the Net, the database of European Syrphidae , vol.25, 99 pp., Syrph the Net publications, Dublin ISSN 1393-4546 (Series) Syrph the Net Publications Dublin 2000 © M.C.D.Speight 2000 USE OF THE SYRPH THE NET DATABASE 2000 CONTENTS Preface Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1. Invertebrates in environmental interpretation and evaluation 1.2. The basic approach adopted in the syrphid database 1.3. The ingredients of the predictive process 1.3.1. Regional lists 1.3.2. Syrphid Habitats 1.4. Modelling 1.5. Origin and development of the syrphid database Chapter 2: FIELD PROCEDURES 2.1. Site description 2.1.1. Use of the Habitat Survey Form 2.2. Field-sampling procedures 2.2.1. Placing of Malaise traps 2.2.2. Sample collection and trap maintenance 2.2.3. Field sampling strategy: obtaining representative samples of site faunas 2.2.3.1. Choice of sampling period 2.2.3.2. Duration of field campaigns 2.2.4. Inventory survey Chapter 3: LABORATORY PROCEDURES 3.1. Treatment of samples 3.2. Determination of sorted specimens 3.3. Recording the determined specimens Chapter 4: DATA PROCESSING PROCEDURES 4.1. Field data files 4.2. The basic site interpretation procedure 4.3. Statistical/analytical techniques 4.3.1. Use of multivariate ordination techniques with the database 4.3.1.1. Reciprocal ordination of the species and sampling stations 4.3.1.2. Reciprocal ordination of the species and their attributes 4.3.1.3. Simultaneous ordination of two matrices Chapter 5: APPLICATIONS OF THE DATABASE 5.1 Application of the FAEWE procedure for assessment of the “ecosystem maintenance” function of a site 5.1.1. The functional assessment procedure (FAP) 5.1.2. Salient features of the functional assessment procedure 5.2. Use of the database in general site management 5.2.1. Use of the database in site restoration 5.2.1.1. Replacement of missing ecosystem components 5.2.1.2. Replacement of one ecosystem by another 5.3. Comparisons between regional lists Chapter 6. PROGRESS & LIMITATIONS REFERENCES Appendix 1. Habitat Survey Form Appendix 2. Nomenclaturally complete species list Appendix 3. Taxonomic literature: genera keyed out by major works PREFACE By far the greater part of this volume has been culled from material already published by the authors (see Castella and Speight 1996, Castella et al 1994, Murphy et al 1994, Speight 1996b, Speight 1997, Speight and Castella 1995), though the published material has had to be augmented to provide a coherent picture. It is not intended as a manual for the interrogation of the syrphid database, but more as a collection of examples of potential usage, together with suggestions on how field, laboratory and interpretation work might be standardised to serve particular objectives. It is assumed that the potential user has a familiarity with the manipulation of Excel spreadsheets, or access to instruction manuals on their use. The first version of the database was produced for use in an EU funded research project which formed part of the STEP programme. This project, the “Functional Analysis of European Wetland Ecosystems” project, or FAEWE project, is referred to at various points in the present text. 1 USE OF THE SYRPH THE NET DATABASE 2000 Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION The syrphid database has been set up for use as a tool in: a) environmental interpretation, b) site evaluation/management, c) the study of Syrphidae. It comprises a series of spreadsheets and text files grouped into volumes, each of which deals with a particular topic. The topics covered so far are: Species accounts Macrohabitats Microsite features Traits Range and Status Use of the database The Species Accounts volume is text throughout, but the other volumes each include both text and spreadsheet files, as is the case in the present volume, which is focused broadly on use of the database. Details of the coverage of each volume are given in an introductory text at the beginning of each volume, and are not repeated here. A readme file is provided to help the user associate the constituent files of each volume of the database correctly. More than 550 European syrphid species are now covered by the database, out of a total European fauna of c750 species. The spreadsheets have been created, saved and used in an Excel™ spreadsheet environment. Excel has been used because it allows maximal flexibility of use of the files subsequently. Any user who has need to repeatedly interrogate the database in a specific way can convert the files into, for example, Microsoft Access files and construct whatever database management system best suits his/her requirements for speeding up the interrogation process. The spreadsheets provide a digitised transcription of information available about the species considered. Information digitisation has been carried out using the system 2 proposed by Bournaud et al. (1982), where 4 integer values are used to describe the degree of association between a species and the categories of a variable, for example, the categories of a habitat variable in the Macrohabitats file: 0 - no association, 1- minimal association (i.e. the habitat category is only marginally used by the species); 2- medium association (i.e. the habitat category is part of the normal range of the species); 3- maximal association (i.e. the habitat category is optimally preferred by the species). The link between the spreadsheet files is provided by the species list, which is common to all of them, allowing sections of different spreadsheets to be joined together as required. A nomenclaturally correct list of the species covered by the database is also given, in Appendix 2 to the present volume.. Up to now, the need to regionalise the information about species coded into the spreadsheets has proved minimal. The most notable exception is coding of the flight period data in the Traits file. Variation in the length and timing of the flight period of many species, in different parts of Europe covered by the database, is sufficient to significantly reduce species predictability, were only a generalised flight period to be coded for each species. This has led to inclusion of sets of regional flight period codings for each species. Unfortunately, regional flight period data are not available for all parts of Europe covered by the database, so that generalised flight period coding still has to be used for some parts. It is anticipated that, as the coverage provided by the database expands, so will the need to progressively regionalise the coded habitat data. Already, certain habitat categories covered by the Macrohabitats file are only found in parts of the geographic area covered by the database. The most obvious examples are coastal habitat categories. Although the main bulk of the present volume has been culled from material already published by the authors, it goes considerably beyond what has been published, particularly in its provision of background information. So far, this introduction has been concerned primarily with the anatomy and coverage of the database, but it was felt that an attempt should be made to also present something of the philosophy behind the database, and the remainder of the Introduction is devoted to 3 that and allied issues. The database is essentially a tool for use in interpretation of data gathered in the field, so Chapter 2 of this volume is concerned with preferred field techniques employed for collecting adult syrphids, and their standardisation. It does not represent a review of all sampling methods currently in use. No attempt has been made to review procedures for sampling syrphid larvae in the field - although techniques are arguably available for use in a limited range of habitat/micro-habitat types, standardised larval collection methods are otherwise non-existent, or require substantial research effort to increase their reliability to an acceptable level. In Chapter 3 the processing of field- collected material is considered. Once again, this is not an attempt to review all available alternatives, but more an outline of a tried and trusted approach, which may be adopted by those wishing to deal with syrphid material collected using the techniques described in Chapter 2. Chapter 4 focuses on manipulation of the spreadsheets and a particular statistical treatment of results which is of potentially wide application in use of the database. Chapter 5 provides examples of use of the database in various contexts, demonstrating, in particular, what can be achieved without recourse to statistics beyond production of the humble histogram. The volume concludes with an overview of the database’s progress to-date, in Chapter 6. Three appendices to the volume are provided, in the form of Excel files.