Fauna europaea: Diptera - brachycera.
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.
Natural History Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Thomas
T
Pape
Natural History Museum Maastricht / Diptera.info, Maastricht, Netherlands.
Paul
P
Beuk
Oxford University Museum of Natural History, Oxford, United Kingdom.
Adrian Charles
AC
Pont
Zoological Museum, Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia.
Anatole I
AI
Shatalkin
Zoological Museum, Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia.
Andrey L
AL
Ozerov
Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences, Wrocław, Poland.
Andrzej J
AJ
Woźnica
Muséum d'histoire naturelle Genève, Paris, Switzerland.
Bernhard
B
Merz
Forest Research Institute, Department of Forest Protection, Warszawa, Poland.
Cezary
C
Bystrowski
Tachinidae Recording Scheme, London, United Kingdom.
Chris
C
Raper
Unaffiliated, Uppsala, Sweden.
Christer
C
Bergström
Senckenberg Natural History Collections Dresden, Museum of Zoology, Dresden, Germany.
Christian
C
Kehlmaier
Unaffiliated, Cardiff, United Kingdom.
David K
DK
Clements
CABI, Sussex, United Kingdom.
David
D
Greathead
I.I. Schmalhausen Institute of Zoology, Kiev, Ukraine.
Elena Petrovna
EP
Kameneva
Zoological Institute Russian Academy of Sciences, St Petersburg, Russia.
Emilia
E
Nartshuk
Department of Forensic Medicine, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Frederik T
FT
Petersen
Unaffiliated, Braunschweig, Germany.
Gisela
G
Weber
Zoological Museum, Zürich, Switzerland.
Gerhard
G
Bächli
Museum Wiesbaden, Natural History Collections, Wiesbaden, Germany.
Fritz
F
Geller-Grimm
Unaffiliated, Reet (Rumst), Belgium.
Guy
G
Van de Weyer
Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde, Stuttgart, Germany.
Hans-Peter
HP
Tschorsnig
NBC Naturalis, Leiden, Netherlands.
Herman
H
de Jong
Unaffiliated, Waalwijk, Netherlands.
Jan-Willem
JW
van Zuijlen
Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic.
Jaromír
J
Vaňhara
Silesian Museum, Opava, Czech Republic.
Jindřich
J
Roháček
Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, Germany.
Joachim
J
Ziegler
University of Pécs, Pécs, Hungary.
József
J
Majer
Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic.
Karel
K
Hůrka
Natural History Museum of Sweden, Stockholm, Sweden.
Kevin
K
Holston
University of Stavanger, Stavanger, Norway.
Knut
K
Rognes
Zoological Museum, Oslo, Norway.
Lita
L
Greve-Jensen
c/o Natural History Museum, Venice, Italy.
Lorenzo
L
Munari
Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren, Belgium.
Marc
M
de Meyer
Research Institute for Nature and Forest, Brussels, Belgium.
Marc
M
Pollet
Dept. of Zoology, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland.
Martin C D
MC
Speight
Unaffiliated, Cowbridge, United Kingdom.
Martin John
MJ
Ebejer
INRA, UMR Centre de Biologie pour la Gestion des Populations, Montferrier-sur-Lez, France.
Michel
M
Martinez
Unaffiliated, Barcelona, Spain.
Miguel
M
Carles-Tolrá
MTA-DE 'Lendület' Behavioural Ecology Research Group, Department of Evolutionary Zoology, University of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary.
Mihály
M
Földvári
Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic.
Milan
M
Chvála
Czech University of Life Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic.
Miroslav
M
Barták
Bishop Museum, Honolulu, United States of America.
Neal L
NL
Evenhuis
Unaffiliated, Melksham, United Kingdom.
Peter J
PJ
Chandler
University of Rome, Roma, Italy.
Pierfilippo
P
Cerretti
National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore.
Rudolf
R
Meier
Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic.
Rudolf
R
Rozkosny
Unaffiliated, Braunschweig, Germany.
Sabine
S
Prescher
California Department of Food and Agriculture, Sacramento, California, United States of America.
Stephen D
SD
Gaimari
Department of Biosystematics, Opole University, Opole, Poland.
Tadeusz
T
Zatwarnicki
Unaffiliated, Soest, Netherlands.
Theo
T
Zeegers
National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, United States of America.
Torsten
T
Dikow
I.I. Schmalhausen Institute of Zoology, Kiev, Ukraine.
Valery A
VA
Korneyev
Zoological Institute Russian Academy of Sciences, St Petersburg, Russia.
Vera Andreevna
VA
Richter
Natural History Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Verner
V
Michelsen
Zoological Institute Russian Academy of Sciences, St Petersburg, Russia.
Vitali N
VN
Tanasijtshuk
National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, United States of America.
Wayne N
WN
Mathis
National Museum of Natural History, Sofia, Bulgaria.
Zdravko
Z
Hubenov
University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland ; University of Amsterdam - Faculty of Science, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Yde
Y
de Jong
Biodiversity Informatics; Brachycera; Diptera; Fauna Europaea; Taxonomic indexing; biodiversity; taxonomy; zoology