The LIFE Project “Monitoring of insects with public participation” (MIPP): aims, methods and conclusions

Giuseppe Maria Carpaneto,Alessandro Campanaro,Giuseppino Sabbatini Peverieri,Franco Mason,Sönke Hardersen,Paolo Audisio,Pio Federico Roversi,Marco Alberto Bologna

doi:10.3897/natureconservation.35.12761

Abstract

The Life Project “Monitoring of insects with public participation” (LIFE11 NAT/IT/000252) had as the main objective to develop and test methods for the monitoring of five beetle species listed in the Annexes of the Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC): Osmodermaeremita (hermit beetle, Scarabaeidae), Lucanuscervus (European stag beetle, Lucanidae), Cerambyxcerdo (great capricorn beetle, Cerambycidae), Rosaliaalpina (rosalia longicorn, Cerambycidae) and Morimusasper/funereus (morimus longicorn, Cerambycidae). The data gathered represent an important contribution to the monitoring of these target species in Italy. The methods developed for monitoring of the target species are intended for use by the local management authorities and staff of protected areas. These developed methods are the result of extensive fieldwork and ensure scientific validity, ease of execution and limited labour costs. The detailed description of methods and the results for each species are published in separate articles of this special issue of Nature Conservation. A second objective of the project was to gather faunistic data with a Citizen Science approach, using the web and a mobile application software (app) specifically built for mobile devices. The validation of the records collected by the citizens was carried out by experts, based on photographs, which were obligatory for all records. Dissemination activities represented the principal way to contact and engage citizens for the data collection and also offered the possibility of providing information on topics such as Natura 2000, the Habitats Directive, the role of monitoring in nature conservation, the importance of forest ecosystems and the ecological role of the saproxylic insects. An innovative method tested during the project was the training of a dog for searching and monitoring the elusive hermit beetle; the trained dog also added a “curiosity” factor to attract public attention towards this rare insect and the issues mentioned above.

Highlights

Monitoring biodiversity and habitats directiveThe inaugural meeting of the International Union for Protection of Nature (IUPN, later renamed IUCN), held in 1948, began to set up instruments to monitor the status of animals and plants worldwide
The results showed that the use of artificial wood baits or logs placed for monitoring did not represent practical alternatives
Concluding remarks and recommendations The Life Project MIPP was a challenge from many points of view: collaborating between different institutions, coordinating a large amount of field work in five study areas, developing monitoring methods for cryptic and elusive species, organising a citizen science project to increase the knowledge on the distribution of rare and protected insects, educating people on biodiversity and Natura 2000 and on the importance of veteran trees in forest ecosystems, etc

Summary

Introduction

Monitoring biodiversity and habitats directiveThe inaugural meeting of the International Union for Protection of Nature (IUPN, later renamed IUCN), held in 1948, began to set up instruments to monitor the status of animals and plants worldwide. The major aim of monitoring is to collect information that can be used for conservation policy, to examine the outcomes of management actions and to guide future management decisions (Kull et al 2008). It consists of collecting reliable data which in turn allow the researchers to draw conclusions that species and ecosystems are changing their status through time and space, either naturally or as a consequence of deliberate or unintentional human intervention. In any case, monitoring programmes should be focused on providing precisely the information needed to make the right conservation decisions. The suitability of a method may depend on the local circumstances, as environmental features, budget and the number of volunteers involved

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion