Natural England Commissioned Report NECR217 A Provisional Assessment of the Status of Acalyptratae flies in the UK First published 1 December 2016 www.gov.uk/natural -england Foreword Natural England commission a range of reports from external contractors to provide evidence and advice to assist us in delivering our duties. The views in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of Natural England. Background Making good decisions to conserve species This report should be cited as: should primarily be based upon an objective process of determining the degree of threat to FALK, S.J., ISMAY, J.W. & CHANDLER, P.J. the survival of a species. The recognised 2016. A Provisional Assessment of the Status of international approach to undertaking this is by Acalyptratae flies in the UK. Natural England assigning the species to one of the IUCN threat Commissioned Reports, Number217. categories. This report was commissioned to update the threat status of the acalypterate fly families. It is based on text originally submitted in 1995, but subsequently updated a number of times, most recently in early 2016. It provides a valuable repository of information on many species and should act as a springboard to further survey and work. Reviews for other invertebrate groups will follow. Natural England Project Manager - David Heaver, Senior Invertebrate Specialist [email protected] Contractor - John Ismay [email protected] Keywords - Acalyptratae flies, invertebrates, red list, IUCN, status reviews, IUCN threat categories, GB rarity status Further information This report can be downloaded from the Natural England Access to Evidence Catalogue: http://publications.naturalengland.org.uk/ . For information on Natural England publications contact the Natural England Enquiry Service on 0300 060 3900 or e-mail [email protected]. This report is published by Natural England under the Open Government Licence - OGLv3.0 for public sector information. You are encouraged to use, and reuse, information subject to certain conditions. For details of the licence visit Copyright. Natural England photographs are only available for non commercial purposes. If any other information such as maps or data cannot be used commercially this will be made clear within the report. ISBN 978-1-78354-337-3 © Natural England and other parties 2016 This Assessment covers the following fly families Acartophthalmidae, Agromyzidae Anthomyzidae, Asteiidae, Aulacigastridae Borboropsidae Canacidae, Carnidae, Chamaemyiidae, Chiropteromyzidae, Chloropidae, Chyromyidae, Clusiidae Diastatidae, Drosophilidae Ephydridae Heleomyzidae Lauxaniidae, Lonchaeidae Megamerinidae, Micropezidae, Milichiidae Odiniidae, Opomyzidae Pallopteridae, Periscelididae, Piophilidae, Pseudopomyzidae, Psilidae Sepsidae, Sphaeroceridae, Stenomicridae, Strongylophthalmyiidae Tanypezidae, Trixoscelididae Ulidiidae i Strongylophthalmyia ustulata (Zetterstedt) I.F.G. McLean del. after Iwasa (1998) The larvae develop under bark of Aspen (Populus tremula). It is a species that may be better recorded by rearing larvae rather than by searching for adults. ii Contents 1. Introduction to the Provisional Status Assessment Series. ................................................. 1 Use of the Assessment............................................................................................................ 1 2. Introduction to the Status Assessments of the Acalyptratae flies ....................................... 2 What are the Acalyptratae flies? ............................................................................................ 2 Does this cover the whole group? .......................................................................................... 2 Why have these families not been subject to an IUCN Species Status Review? ................... 3 How were the provisional status ascriptions arrived at? ........................................................ 3 What are the IUCN categories? .............................................................................................. 4 Previous status assessments ................................................................................................... 5 Do National Recording Schemes exist for these families? .................................................... 7 Hindrances to study ................................................................................................................ 8 3. The future ........................................................................................................................... 9 4. Information used for this Assessment .............................................................................. 10 5. Species listed by provisional IUCN status category ......................................................... 11 6. Taxonomic list of species previously assigned a conservation status but now excluded from this assessment ................................................................................................................ 17 7. Taxonomic list of rarity categories for Scarce species over time ..................................... 18 8. Species assigned to provisional higher threat categories.................................................. 27 9. Easy access table to Provisional status listing in this Assessment ................................... 29 10. Format of the data sheets .............................................................................................. 35 11. The data sheets .............................................................................................................. 38 Pseudopomyzidae ................................................................................................................. 38 Micropezidae ........................................................................................................................ 39 Tanypezidae ......................................................................................................................... 41 Strongylophthalmyiidae ....................................................................................................... 42 Megamerinidae ..................................................................................................................... 43 Psilidae ................................................................................................................................. 44 Lonchaeidae ......................................................................................................................... 49 Pallopteridae ......................................................................................................................... 56 Piophilidae ............................................................................................................................ 59 Ulidiidae ............................................................................................................................... 62 Lauxaniidae .......................................................................................................................... 71 12. Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................... 224 13. References and Further Reading ................................................................................. 227 iii Koziol, M. 2007. Cone Entomofauna of Norway Spruce Picea abies (L.) Karst. In selected stands of the Tatra National Park in Poland. Electronic Journal of Polish Agricultural Universities 10 (4), #18,......................................................................................................... 244 www.ejpau.media.pl/volume10/issue4/art-18.html ............................................................... 244 iv 1. Introduction to the Provisional Status Assessment Series. This report is one of a new set dealing with the status of the lesser known and less well-recorded invertebrates in the UK. The series aims to draw together and share what is known about such species, very much with a view to spurring on further interest in and recording of them. These volumes are complementary to the Species Status Review Series which, by its very nature, covers groups with robust data sets, amenable to scrutiny through the lens of the IUCN threat categories, and with a more comprehensive understanding of both distribution and ecology. It is hoped that in drawing together the available information on the status of their species, the new Assessments will encourage greater consideration of the species needs both by those charged with their conservation and with those engaged in recording their distribution and numbers. Use of the Assessment The use of IUCN terminology allows us to classify, describe and communicate information about the status of individual species. We have added the prefix p to indicate that this is very much a provisional assessment based on data which would be insufficient for a formal IUCN status review. As the two sorts of assessment are not equivalent, care needs to exercised in their appropriate use. The scarcer (under our current understanding) species have been given a provisional status category. When using these Provisional status classes, they should be reported in the form of “pVulnerable” to make it clear that is does not have the same footing or authority as an IUCN- compliant judgement of “Vulnerable” found in modern Species Status review series. The weighting