Study area

Camprodon valley (‘Valle de Camprodón’ in Spanish) is located in the axial eastern Pyrenees. This hilly valley is in the eastern part of the Ripollès region, Girona province (abbreviated as ‘GI’ hereinafter), Spain. The climate is typical Pyrenean, humid and rainy. The Ter river, which rises at high altitudes in this valley, is also the main water course in it. All along the valley, there are some scattered small villages and there is a ski resort at about 2000 m asl. The diverse vegetation of the Camprodon valley is dominated by a mosaic of woodlands and grasslands as a result of a long history of human use. The montane and subalpine altitudinal zones are represented in the valley. Montane vegetation (700-1600 m asl) consists mainly of deciduous forest of Quercus spp. and Fagus sylvestris L., as well as forest of red pine (Pinus sylvestris L.). The dominant species in the understory of the montane forest is the common box (Buxus sempervirens L.). Montane vegetation of riversides includes Salix, Populus and Alnus trees. Subalpine vegetation (1600-2300 m asl) is dominated by forests of black pine (Pinus uncinata Ramond ex A. DC.) that are usually more open at higher altitudes, with alpenrose (Rhododendron ferrugineum L.) in the understory. Grasslands are also typical of the subalpine zone (Sacasas-i-Lluís, 2009). The sampling sites of the present study within the Camprodon valley are detailed in Table 1. Sites belong to four different villages, Camprodon, Llanars, Setcases, and Vilallonga de Ter.

Fieldwork and hoverfly identification

Adult hoverflies were collected by Antonio Ricarte and Zorica Nedeljković using hand-nets, from 29 July to 3 August 2020. Vegetation and especially flowers (e.g. Heracleum sphondylium L., Hypericum sp., Eupatorium cannabinum L., Knautia sp., Pastinaca sp.) were inspected for hoverflies in sunny areas, and also on some hilltops (S3, S14). Specimens were kept in tubes in the freezer until defrosting in the lab for preparation. Specimens were pinned and labelled following the usual techniques (Galante & Marcos-García, 2004). A bar code label was assigned to each specimen and the information databased in an Excel file. Bar code numbers were written for each specimen (as a single code) or series of specimens (as a range of codes) in the examined material. Every code starts with ‘CEUA’ plus a number of zeros and then the actual code number (e.g. CEUA00050300), but only the number is indicated in the list of examined material.

Specimens were identified to the species level by Antonio Ricarte and Zorica Nedeljković, except otherwise stated. The literature used for identification is Nielsen (1970), Violovitsh (1974), Dušek & Láska (1976), Goeldlin de Tiefenau (1976), Marcos-García & Láska (1983), Vujić (1992), Vujić & Šimić (1995-1998), Goeldlin de Tiefenau (1996), Barkalov & Ståhls (1997), Verlinden (1999), Vujić (1999), van Steenis (2000), Hippa et al. (2001), Sommaggio (2001), Claussen & Ståhls (2007), Ståhls et al. (2008), Barkalov (2009), Bartsch et al. (2009a, b), Ricarte et al. (2010), van Veen (2010), van Steenis & Lucas (2011), Nedeljković et al. (2013), Vujić et al. (2013), Haarto & Ståhls (2014), van Steenis et al. (2016), Speight & Sarthou (2017), Vujić et al. (2017), Nedeljković et al. (2018), and van Steenis et al. (2020). When it was necessary to confirm the species identification, male genitalia were dissected with entomological pins. They were cleared in a hot solution of KOH for up to 5 min, immersed in acetic acid to remove excess KOH, washed in 70% alcohol, and stored in microvials containing glycerine. When specimens were dry, they were first relaxed in a humid chamber before genitalia removal. All specimens are deposited in the CEUA-CIBIO collection, University of Alicante, Spain. Hoverflies were photographed in the field by Antonio Ricarte (except where otherwise stated) with a camera Canon® PowerShot SX730 HS. A pinned specimen of Chrysotoxum Meigen, 1803 was illustrated (Fig. 1) with photos produced as stacks of individual images made with a camera (Leica DFC 450) attached to a binocular stereomicroscope (Leica M205 C). Stacks were made in Leica Application Suite X (LAS X) ®, v. 3.0.4.16529.

Taxonomic and faunistic assessments

For the collected hoverflies, the faunistic novelty of each species (Appendix) was assessed on the basis of Ricarte & Marcos-García (2017) plus all other subsequent faunistic references. The Iberian Peninsula is here interpreted as the unit encompassing the mainland parts of Spain and Portugal together, plus Andorra. First documented records are also indicated in order to make locality details available for those species that had imprecise records in previous literature. A full list of material examined is provided for each species by using the site codes of Table 1. Collection dates are written in the examined material lists only for the specimens caught in S6 and S12, because these sites were visited on more than one day. For the taxonomic classification of the species collected, the arrangement of subfamilies used – indicated after each species name – follows Mengual et al. (2015). Genus and species names generally follow Speight (2020).

Table 1.

Sampling sites in the eastern Pyrenees of Girona province (Spain) during July/August 2020 field work. The dates when each site was visited is also presented.

Fig. 1.

Chrysotoxum lessonae male, from Camprodon valley, Girona province, Spain. (A) Dorsal view. (B) Lateral view. Scale bar = 2 mm.

Checklist of Girona hoverflies

The species collected in this study are also presented in the broader frame of an updated checklist of the hoverflies from Girona province. Localities and references are provided for every species in the checklist. The following localities are listed, based on both literature and the present study: L1, Arbucias; L2, Blanes; L3, Caldes de Malavella; L4, Camprodon; L5, Caralps; L6, Cerdaña; L7, Empalme; L8, Figueras; L9, Flassa; L10, La Bisbal; L11, La Molina; L12, Llanars; L13, Massanas; L14, Massanet de la Selva ‘Maçanet-Massanes station’; L15, Mollo; L16, Nuria; L17, Pals; L18, Puigcerdà; L19, Ribas; L20, Ribas de Freser; L21, Rosas; L22, San Cristóbal de Tosas; L23, San Juan de las Abadesas; L24, San Marsal; L25, Sant Ilari de Sacalm; L26, Sarriá; L27, Setcases; L28, Sils; L29, Torroella; L30, Viladrau; L31, Vilallonga de Ter; L32, ‘Between Campodron and Setcases’; L33, 13 km south to Girona city. Locality L4 includes the sampling site S1 of the present study; L12 includes S2, S3, S4, S5; L27 includes S6, S7, S8; L31 includes S10, S11, S12, S13, S14 (Table 1).

The following references were reviewed (numbers are used in the checklist to identify each individual reference): 1, Cuní (1880); 2, Cuní (1881); 3, Cuní (1885); 4, Antiga, 1888; 5, Andreu (1926); 6, Gil Collado (1930); 7, Leclercq (1963); 8, Leclercq (1971); 9, Lucas (1974); 10, Lucas (1976); 11, Goeldlin de Tiefenau (1989); 12, Barkalov & Ståhls (1997); 13, Marcos-García et al. (2002); 14, Marcos-García et al. (2007); 15, van Eck (2010); 16, Marcos-García et al. (2011); 17, van Steenis & Lucas (2011); 18, Álvarez-Fidalgo et al., 2018; 19, van Steenis et al. (2020); 20, Ricarte & Nedeljković (2020). Marcos-García et al. (1998) is not included in the list of references because it does not provide information on the localities within provinces. Dirickx (1994) also omits locality details for species but does provide maps with distribution points, so is not cited in this checklist, except for comments on the distribution of certain species.

Regarding specific references, the following questions should be noted: a) Cuní (1881) reported hoverflies from the Spanish Cerdaña, which is divided between the Lleida and Girona provinces and he did not specify where each species was collected. Since he was based on Puigcerdà (Girona) for fieldwork, we assume here that all species belong to GI. b) Gil Collado (1930) reports hoverflies from ‘Ribas’ and ‘Rivas’, one from Madrid (Rivas?) and other from GI (Ribas? i.e. Ribas de Freser? Ribas valley?), however both names are written as ‘Ribas’ in the locality index of Gil Collado (1930), and Ribas/ Rivas also appear to be inconsistently used throughout his monograph. Thus, we include Ribas in the present checklist when there were enough grounds to believe that the species was collected in the Ribas of GI.

All species are numbered and presented in alphabetical order, including the species reported in the present work (indicated as ‘present study’). Genus and species names in the checklist follow Speight (2020), which can be consulted together with Peck (1988) for authority and year of each taxon. Where species names used in the historical literature under review have been superceded, those are given after the current name and are preceded by (=).

New hoverfly records from the Camprodon valley

Cheilosia laticornis Rondani, 1857 (Eristalinae)

Fig. 2.

Hoverfly species from Camprodon valley, Girona, Spain. (A) Eristalis pertinax, male, flowers of Eupatorium cannabinum, Setcases. (B) Ferdinandea cuprea, female, flowers of Hypericum sp., Vilallonga de Ter. (C) Milesia crabroniformis, male, Camprodon. Photos A, B by Antonio Ricarte, C by M. Carbonell.

Leucozona glaucia (Linnaeus, 1758) (Syrphinae)

Taxonomic and faunistic assessment of the new hoverfly records from Camprodon valley

Excluding the records of Triglyphus primus Loew, 1840, which represented the first finding of this genus from Spain (Ricarte & Nedeljković, 2020), one (Chrysotoxum lessonae) species is new to the Iberian Peninsula, 19 are new to Catalonia, and 23 to GI. First documented records from Spain and the Iberian Peninsula are given for Cheilosia hypena and Xylota tarda, respectively, meaning that their presence in Spain and the Iberian Peninsula was previously reported in the literature, but without locality details (Appendix).

A total of 81 hoverfly species of 38 genera were identified. The two main subfamilies (Eristalinae and Syrphinae) had a similar number of genera recorded (16 and 19 respectively). Of all genera, 34 were represented by only 1-3 species, while the genus Cheilosia Meigen, 1822 had the highest number of species in the study (13 spp.), followed by Eristalis Latreille, 1804 (7 spp.) and Chrysotoxum Meigen, 1803 (6 spp.).

Taking into consideration the altitudinal zoning indicated in the study area section and Table 1, most species represented in the study were absent from the subalpine zone, where the only exclusive species was Parasyrphus vittiger. All species except P. vittiger were found in the montane zone. Twelve species were shared between the two sampled altitudinal zones (Fig. 3).

Hoverfly checklist of the Girona province (Table 2)

See the meaning of the locality and reference codes in the Material and Methods section.

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Fig. 3.

Distribution of hoverfly species by altitudinal zones (subalpine and montane) from the catch in Camprodon valley, eastern Pyrenees (Spain) in July/August 2020. For each zone, an on-site picture of the representative landscape/vegetation is shown. Species shared between zones are listed on left. Species exclusive of each zone on right.

Doubtful records