Provisional atlas of British hover les

176 Pages·2010·5.91 MB·English

Centre for
Eco logy & Hydrology
NATURAL ENVIRONMENT RESEARCH COUNCIL
Provision a l a tlas of
B ritish h over les
(D ip tera, Sy a e)
_
Stuart G Ball & Roger K A Morris
_
J O I N T
NATURE
CONSERVATION
COMMITTEE
NERC Copyright 2000
Printed in 2000 by CRL Digital Limited
ISBN I 870393 54 6
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Published by
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Cover illustration: Rhingia campestris by Stuart G Ball
REF Cols-9 -3-c4 )0)
es-f Cid - 2 _00
Centre for
Ecology & Hydrology
NATURAL ENVIRONMENT RESEARCH COUNCIL
CE.,1 I 1RGH
LIBRARY
Provision a l a tlas of
B ritish h overlf ies
(D ip tera, Sy rp h id ae)
Stu a rt G Ball & Roger K A Morris
Centre for Ecology end Hydrology
Bush Estate
Penicaik
Miht othien /
EI-126 OQB
J O I N T
NATURE
CONSERVATION
COMMITTEE
Citation information
Ball S.G. & Morris A.K.A. 2000. Provisional atlas of British hoverlf ies (Diptera, Sy phidae).
Huntingdon: Biological Records Centre.
CON TEN TS
1
INTR ODUCTION
History of the Hoverfl y Recording Scheme 1
2
Coverage
5
STATUS OF HOVERFLIES IN BRITAIN
Species recorded from Ireland but not Britain 5
Species believed to have become established, or to have increased 5
Species believed to be migrants, partial migrants or vagrants 5
Species believed to be extinct in Britain 6
Species which have declined significantly 6
Rarity and threat 8
Biodiversity Action Plans 8
Habitat-indicator statuses 9
NOTES ON THE DISTRIBUTION MAPS AND SPECIES ACCOUNTS 13
The maps 13
Nomenclature 13
Species accounts 13
Phenology histograms 13
15
MAPS AND SPECIES ACCOUNTS
151
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
155
REFERENCES
159
SPECIES INDEX
á
IN TR OD UCTI ON
The hoverfl ies are a family of attractive, and often Philip Entwistle retired as Recording Scheme organiser
brightly coloured fl ies which are Familiar to most and Hoverf-ly Newslettereditor. The latter job was
people because they are frequently seen visiting taken over by Graham Rotheray, and the workload of
flowers in parks and gardens. They have received a dealing with records was spread by establishing a
generally 'good press'as benefi cial insects because network of local advisors to check and forward
the larvae of many of the common garden species records to BRC.
feed on aphids. However, because many possess
wasp-like black and yellow striped patterns, or In 1988 a new journal,Dipterists Digest,was launched
mimic bees, they are oft en mistaken for which has proved an important vehicle for papers on
Hymenoptera, and during mass movements of some the natural history of hoverflies in Britain, Ireland and
of the common migratory species have occasionally the near continent. The first issue featured a hoverfly
figured in the press as 'a plague of wasps'. They are on the front cover and papers concerning hoverlfies
often the first group to be tackled by budding have always provided a substantial portion of the
dipterists and the availability of a well illustrated contents.
identification guide (Stubbs & Falk 1983) has greatly
boosted interest in the group over the last decade. Between 1987 and 1991 the Recording Scheme
With 266 British species, many (but by no means all) underwent a period of inactivity with no national
of which are easily identified, they are an ideal organiser and with no prospect of BRC having
group to study. They are also extremely diverse in resources to progress the provisional atlas. Then, in
form, life-style and habitat preference, which means late 1990, Stuart Ball and Roger Morris took over as
that an interesting range of species can be found in national organisers, with Roger Morris in charge of
most localities and habitats. These factors have day-to-day liaison with contributors and record
encouraged an active recording scheme which has checking, and Stuart Ball in charge of data processing.
collated information about the distribution and In Autumn 1991 the records that had been
natural history of these fascinating insects. computerised by BRC were loaded into a copy of the
Recorderdatabase and the process of checking them
History of the Hoverfly Recording began. The considerable backlog of information on
cards and other paper forms which had been
Scheme
submitted to BRC, but not input to computer, was
another rather daunting task. By 1992 the records
The Hoverlfy Recording Scheme was launched in
input by BRC had been checked against the original
1976 (Stubbs 1990), under the umbrella of the
cards and progress was being made on trawling new
Central Panel of Diptera Recording Schemes, with
records, both on cards and on disk from various
John lsmay as the first national organiser. In 1980
databases.
Philip Entwistle took over as scheme organiser and
he subsequently initiated the Houerfly Newsletter
In 1992 David Iliff took over as editor ofHoverfl y
which first appeared in October 1982 including six
distribution maps. In 1983 a preliminary atlas, Newsletterand in March 1993 the Central Panel
started a series of annual training events with a
containing 30 hand-plotted maps, was produced by
weekend workshop on hoverfly identification at
the Biological Records Centre (BRC) (Entwistle &
Stubbs 1983). Also in 1983British Hoverflies,a well Preston Montford Field Studies Centre. In 1994 the
illustrated and 'user friendly' identiifcation guide, was Central Panel reformed itself as an independent
society, 'Dipterists Forum', affiliated to the British
published (Stubbs & Falk 1983), which opened up
Entomological and Natural History Society. Its
hoverfl y recording to many more people. Another
significant publication wasHoverfliesin the objectives include publication of newsletters, such as
Naturalists' Handbooksseries (Gilbert 1986). This Hovedly Newsletter,to foster the study of Diptera and
provides an excellent summary of biology and many to publish the resulting works in its journal,Dipterists
Digest.
useful hints on observing, studying and recording
hoverflies, but it should not be relied upon, on its
own, for identification. \hT at had been considered a Information about hoverfly biology has continued to
rather specialised and diff icult group became by far increase, especially knowledge of larvae. Graham
the most popular group of fl ies. Rotheray was particularly active in the latter field and
published a summary of the current state of our
Calls for records to be submitted to BRC for the knowledge in Colour guide to hoverfl y larvae
production of a provisional atlas were made at (Rotheray 1994). In 1996 Alan Stubbs produced a
Dipterists Day in 1985 and 1986 and, together with Supplement to British Hoveryliesincluding
the records that had been accumulated by Ismay and information on the 15 species added to the British list
Entwistle, around 80 000 records arrived at BRC of since the original publication in 1983 and updated
which 54 500 were input to computer flie. In 1987 keys to some genera (Stubbs 1996).
Table I. Number of records submitted, by year of observation
Cumulative %
Cumulative (of dated records)
664 0.18%
1 577 0.42%
2 907 0.78%
7 031 1.89%
10 709 2.88%
14 786 3.98%
18 696 5.03%
28 065 7.55%
39 619 10.65%
60 507 16.27%
111 940 30.10%
238 793 64.22%
336 065 90.38%
371 836 100.00%
Coverage from 1987 onwards, and a rather small proportion
(7.6%) from before 1970 (Table 1). Whilst there
Up to June 1999, the recording scheme had collated were undoubtedly far fewer active recorders in the
374,784 records from 2,445 ten kilometre squares; past, older records are under-represented because
the great majority from Great Britain (2,361 ten there has been no concerted attempt to obtain
kilometre squares), the remainder being from records from the literature and museum collections.
Ireland (79 squares), and the Channel Islands (five A few collections have been re-examined and
squares). The collated records cover all British records submitted to the scheme (notably the Diver
species. There are 2,862 ten kilometre squares in collection of specimens from Studland, Dorset in the
Great Britain's National Grid which contain some 1930s, the British Entomological & Natural History
land, so the scheme has received at least one record Society collection, Exeter Museum and Doncaster
from 82.5%. Figure 1 shows all ten kilometre Museum), but the only other substantial source of
squares in Great Britain from which at least one older records is the data collated by Steven Falk in
record has been received, and Figure 2 shows the preparing the National Review of Diptera for the
number of species recorded from each square. Nature Conservancy Council in the late 1980s (Falk
These maps, especially Figure 2, give a good 1991a). These records concentrate on the rarer
general impression of the coverage that has been species including both literature records and
achieved so far. Coverage is patchy with some local information from some major collections such as
recording schemes having surveyed their areas those of the Natural History Museum, Royal Scottish
intensively —n otably in Surrey, but also Essex, Museum, Cambridge University Museum of Zoology
Somerset, Dorset, Oxfordshire, south-west Wales, and the Hope Department, Oxford.
the Sorby Naturalists' area, Rotherham, the Coventry
area and the territory of the North West Hoverfly
Recording Group. Some other areas remain poorly
covered, especially the Welsh borders, Wiltshire and
the areas around the Wash (which appears to be
genuinely very poor for hoverfl ies). Coverage in
Scotland is much better than is shown here,
especially in the east, due to the activities of the
Scottish Hoverfly Recording Scheme run by Ken
Watt, but not all of these records were available to
the National Recording Scheme for this Atlas
Although records from Northern Ireland have been
collated at the Centre for Environmental Data and
Recording (CEDaR) in Belfast, these have not been
incorporated into the scheme as yet and very few
records from the Irish Republic are available to us.
Consequently, this atlas does not attempt to cover
Ireland.
The records submitted to the scheme are
overwhelmingly (70.2%) from dates aft er the
publication of Stubbs and Falk (1983), with half
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