Abstract
The taxocoenoses (associations) of (hilltopping) fleshflies visiting organic substrates, mainly offal etc of the Greek Aegean and lonian Seacoast, of the Adriatic Seacoast and of the Spanish Catalonia Seacoast including the adjacent habitats, mainly mountain ranges, are compared. The long-term study basing on the statistic evaluation of several thousand specimens representing about 60 taxa indicates that the fleshfly taxocoenoses of the 2 secondary distributional centers of the Holomediterranean territory, viz the E' or Pontomediterranean and the W' or Atlantomediterranean show distinct both synecological and distributional differences. They are reflected in the relative population densities and in the species spectres of these two areas. Following fleshfly taxa are characteristic of the two centers: Salemea ferox, Thyrsocnema belgiana, Liopygia cultellata, Heteronychia siciliana and Heteronychia pandellei are characteristic of of the west, and Heteronychia gigas, Heteronychia vervesi, Heteronychia macedonica, H portschinskyana, H maritima and H kataphygionis of the east. The W' mediterranean species are not strietly Iberian endemics. secause the interior, purely Iberian fleshfly fauna is poorly known and the discovery of endemic Iberian taxa might be expected. This situation contrasts with the comparatively well known fleshfly taxocoenoses comprising such purely Balkan maritime endemics as Heteronychia gigas, H maritima, H kataphygionis. The more widely distributed Greek continental species, however, such as Heteronychia vervest and H macedonica, possibly also occur in Asia Minor. Helicophagoides pagensis believed to be a rare adriatic endemic was discovered also in the maritime habitats of Greece and France, and it seems to show a bolomediterranean distribution pattern (approximately similar to the purely holomediterranean Heteronychia penicillata) The synanthropic fleshflies tending towards cosmopolitanism in the subtropical and tropical zones of Africa, Asia and parlly Australia (especially Liorarcophaga dux, L aegyptica, L portshinskyi and Parasarcophaga hirtipes), and showing importance in hygiene and epidemiology, are either absent from or rate in the W' Mediterranean, possibly because the maritime atlantomediterranean habitats are more humid than their counterparts in the E' Mediterranean The high population densities of such culturophiles or synanthropes as Pierretia nigriventris, Bercaea cruentata, Liopygia crassipalpis, L argyrostoma, Ravinia pernix etc reflect the general environmental disintegration (due to general problems of hygiene, tourism and other impacts by modern civilization), although the higher living standard and level of hygiene in the Catalonian habitats reflect in distictly lower population densities of strictly synanthropic fleshflies. It shows that the species of Sarcophaginae and especially their samples from the male hilltopping aggregations are a very useful insect model group for both synecological and biogeographical studies.
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