Fauna Europaea: Hymenoptera – Symphyta & Ichneumonoidea

Abstract Fauna Europaea provides a public web-service with an index of scientific names (including important synonyms) of all extant European terrestrial and freshwater animals, their geographical distribution at the level of countries and major islands (west of the Urals and excluding the Caucasus region), and some additional information. 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 specialists throughout Europe and is a unique (standard) reference suitable for many users in science, government, industry, nature conservation and education. For the Hymenoptera, taxonomic data from one grade (Symphyta) and one Superfamily (Ichneumonoidea), including 15 families and 10,717 species, are included. Ichneumonoidea is the largest superfamily of Hymenoptera and consisting of two extant families, Ichneumonidae and Braconidae. The costal cell of the fore wing is absent, the fore wing has at least two closed cells, the constriction between the mesosoma (thorax + first abdominal segment or propodeum) and the metasoma (remainder of abdomen) is distinct and the parasitoid larvae usually spin a silken cocoon. Also, the metasoma is ventrally partly desclerotized in the vast majority of ichneumonoids.


Introduction
In 1998 the European Commission published the European Community Biodiversity Strategy, providing a framework for development of Community policies and instruments in order to comply with the Convention on Biological Diversity. This Strategy recognises the current incomplete state of knowledge at all levels concerning biodiversity, which is a constraint on the successful implementation of the Convention. Fauna Europaea contributes to this Strategy by supporting one of the main themes: to identify and catalogue the components of European biodiversity into a database to serve as a basic tool for science and conservation policies.
With regard to biodiversity in Europe, science and policies depend on sufficient knowledge of its components. The assessment of biodiversity, monitoring changes, sustainable exploitation of biodiversity, as well as much legislative work depends upon a validated taxonomic overview, in which Fauna Europaea plays a major role by providing a web-based information infrastructure with an index of scientific names (including important synonyms) of all living European land and freshwater animals, their geographical distribution at the level of countries and some relevant optional information. In this sense the Fauna Europaea database provides a unique reference for many user-groups such as scientists, governments, industries, conservation communities and educational programs.
Fauna Europaea (FaEu) kicked off in 2000 as an EC-FP5 four-year project, delivering its first release in 2004 . Fauna Europaea has continuously been updated, and after a further decade of steady progress, to efficiently disseminate the results of Fauna Europaea and to properly credit the Fauna Europaea contributors, modern e-publishing tools are being applied to prepare data papers on all 58 major taxonomic groups. For this purpose a special Biodiversity Data Journal Series has been compiled, called Contributions on Fauna Europaea (see also: Pensoft News item 17 Dec 2014). This work was initiated during the ViBRANT project and is further supported by the recently started EU BON project.
In the EU BON project also further steps will be made to implement Fauna Europaea as a basic tool and standard reference for biodiversity research and as a means to facilitate taxonomic expertise evaluation and management in Europe, including its contributions to the European Taxonomic Backbone (PESI / EU-nomen) project (Jong de et al. 2015).
This paper is the first publication of the Fauna Europaea Hymenoptera (Symphyta & Ichneumonoidea) data sector as a BDJ data paper in the Fauna Europaea series.
Although practically treated as a grade, Symphyta form a paraphyletic assemblage and are not a monophyletic clade; the name is used for all Hymenoptera with the abdomen broadly connected to the thorax and having wings with several closed cells or with cenchri present. The fore tibia has often two apical spurs and the larvae are usually caterpillar-like ("false caterpillars", with 6-8 pairs of abdominal legs). Larvae boring in wood or stems are legless grub-like larvae; ovipositor usually very wide and saw-like, but narrow in Siricidae, Xiphydriidae and Orussidae.

General description
Purpose: Fauna Europaea is a database of the scientific names and distributions (at national or in some cases regional level) of all currently known extant multicellular European terrestrial and freshwater animal species. The database has been assembled by a large network of taxonomic specialists. An extended description of the Fauna Europaea project can be found in Jong de et al. 2014. A summary is given in the sections below.
Responsible specialists per family in Hymenoptera -Symphyta + Ichneumonidae. The Symphyta contain the following 13 families in Europe: Table 2.
Fauna Europaea: Hymenoptera -Symphyta &amp; Ichneumonoidea Xyelidae: Oldest extant family of Hymenoptera with small number of extant species in the Holarctic region. The imagines visit flowering (birch-)catkins, near the conifers where the larvae eat pollen in the cones of pines (Pinus spp.) and new buds and shoots of firs (Abies spp.). The maxillary palpi are aberrant and used as a grasping instrument (Fig. 2).
Megalodontesidae: Small family formerly known as Megalodontidae and occurring in the subtropical parts of the Palaearctic region. Most larvae live (solitarily) in a case, which is generally suspended among or on the leaves of umbelliferous plants, on which the larvae feed.
Pamphiliidae: Medium-sized family occurring in the Holarctic region. The larvae generally live solitarily in spun cases or curled-up leaves of Rosaceae and other deciduous plants or gregariously on coniferous trees (Fig. 3), although some Neurotoma (on Rosaceae) are gregarious.
Blasticotomidae: A very small family (with only two genera and 12 extant species) and now confined to temperate forests of the Palaearctic region. The larva of the only European species, Blasticotoma filiceti Klug, 1834, lives in the stems of ferns in a small chamber (or gall) and feed on the phloem fluids (Fig. 4). Xyelidae Xyela julii (Brebisson, 1818). Drawing by Erik-Jan Bosch.
Argidae: Medium -sized cosmopolitan family; the larvae of Arginae live especially on Rosaceae, but also catkin-bearing trees (Salicaceae, Fagaceae) and Proteaceae are used. Larvae of some Sterictiphorinae live on herbaceous Fabaceae. The males in the subfamily Sterictiphorinae may have the third antennal segment branched.
Tenthredinidae: Large and very diverse cosmopolitan family containing most species of Symphyta in the Holarctic region. The larvae live on or mine on many kinds of trees, shrubs or herbaceous plants, including fruits, ferns, horse-tails (Equisetum spp.) and rushes ( Juncus species) (Fig. 5, Fig. 6). Pamphilius aurantiacus (Giraud, 1857). Photo by C. van Achterberg. Cimbicidae: Rather small Holarctic family. The often conspicuous larvae live on various deciduous trees, climbers (Lonicera spp.) and herbs (Fig. 7).  Cephidae: Rather small and mainly Holarctic family. The larvae bore in twigs of deciduous trees and shrubs or in stems of Gramineae (Poaceae).
Siricidae: Rather small and mainly Holarctic family, but introduced with timber into other areas. The larvae bore in wood of coniferous and deciduous trees and shrubs, stems of Gramineae (Poaceae), or sometimes in herbs." (e.g. Pachycephus in Papaver). Adults have their wings more or less longitudinally wrinkled (Fig. 8).
Fauna Europaea: Hymenoptera -Symphyta &amp; Ichneumonoidea Xiphydriidae: Rather small family, known from all regions except the Afrotropical region. The eggs are laid into smaller limbs and branches of deciduous trees wherein the larvae make their burrows ( Fig. 9).
Orussidae: Small cosmopolitan family; the larvae are idiobiont parasitoids of wood inhabiting larvae: mainly of Buprestidae, but also of Curculionidae, Cerambycidae, Siricidae and (as hyperparasitoid) Ichneumonidae (Rhyssinae). The first instar larva is a solitary pseudohyperparasitoids, but subsequent instars may feed endophagously in the dead host. Only family of Symphyta with upper valve of ovipositor undivided apically Quicke et al. 1994 and has the long fine ovipositor internalised (Fig. 10).  Braconidae have the second and third tergites of metasoma immovably joined, vein 2m-cu of fore wing nearly always absent and vein 1r-m of hind wing more or less basally of distal end of vein SC+R or absent. Very large family, with about 21,300 valid species described. The biology is very variable (Shaw and Huddleston 1991); the legless larvae are ectoparasitoids of all kinds of larvae of insects, egg-larval endoparasitoids, true larval endoparasitoids of several orders of insects (but not as hyperparasitoids; only one genus contains pseudohyperparasitoids) to endoparasitoids of adult beetles, bugs and aphids; exceptionally of adult Apidae and parasitoid wasps. The Aphidiinae are a basal group of the Braconidae and in the past often treated as a separate family Aphidiidae, which is not justified by their phylogeny (Quicke and van Achterberg 1990).
Ichneumonidae is the largest family of the Hymenoptera (and one of the largest families of the animal kingdom) with about 25,300 valid species described. Ichneumonidae have the venation of the fore wing rather stable, in contrast to the highly variable venation of Braconidae. The second metasomal tergite is hinged to third tergite (but still movable and not immobilised as in Braconidae), vein 2m-cu of fore wing nearly always present and vein 1r-m of hind wing more or less distally of distal end of vein SC+R or absent. The larvae are parasitoids in or on all kinds of larvae of several orders of insects, but especially of caterpillars and also rather frequent (as pseudohyperparasitoids) of other parasitic Hymenoptera: especially the Cryptinae (the largest subfamily, another part frequently parasitizes egg aggregates of spiders!). The presence of a discosubmarginal cell is also characteristic (but does not exclude all Braconidae). Highly aberrant are the Holarctic Hybrizontinae (formerly included in the Braconidae and often known by its synonym Paxylommatinae) in morphology (e.g. wings) and biology (parasitoids of ant larvae).

Project description
Title: This BDJ data paper includes the taxonomic indexing efforts in Fauna Europaea on European Hymenoptera (Symphyta & Ichneumonoidea) covering the first two versions of Fauna Europaea worked on between 2000 and 2013 (up to version 2.6).

Personnel:
The taxonomic framework of Fauna Europaea includes partner institutes, which together with a number of additional experts, and local scientists provide the taxonomic expertise, taking care of data collation and faunistic quality assurance.
Every taxonomic group is covered by at least one Group Coordinator responsible for the supervision and integrated input of taxonomic and occurrence data of a particular group. For Hymenoptera (Symphyta & Ichneumonoidea) the responsible Group Coordinator is Kees van Achterberg.
The Fauna Europaea checklist would not have reached its current level of completion without the input from several groups of specialists. The formal responsibility of collating and delivering the data of relevant families has resided with the below appointed Taxonomic Specialists (see Table 1), while Associate Specialists deserve credit for their important contributions at various levels, including particular geographic regions or (across) taxonomic groups (see Table 2).  (Fig. 11).
Design description: Standards. Group coordinators and taxonomic specialists have been delivering the (sub)species names according to strict standards. The names provided by FaEu are scientific names. The taxonomic scope includes issues like, (1) the definition of criteria used to identify the accepted species-group taxa, (2) the hierarchy (classification scheme) for the accommodation of the all accepted species and (3), relevant synonyms, and (4) the correct nomenclature. The 'Fauna Europaea Guidelines for Group Coordinators and Taxonomic Specialists' Suppl. material 2, include the standards, protocols, scope, and limits that provide the instructions for all more than 400 specialists contributing to the project.
Data management. The data records could either be entered off-line into a pre-formatted MS-Excel worksheet or directly into the Fauna Europaea transaction database using an online browser interface (Fig. 12). The data servers were hosted at the Academic Informatics  Additional support for preparing the Hymenoptera (Symphyta & Ichneumonoidea) data set was received through the numerous institutions allowing for the proper allocation of time by the contributing taxonomic specialists. Fauna Europaea on-line (browser interfaces) and off-line (spreadsheets) data entry tools.

Sampling methods
Study extent: See spatial coverage and geographic coverage descriptions.
Sampling description: Fauna Europaea data have been assembled by principal taxonomic experts, based on their individual expertise, including literature study, collection research, and field observations. In total no less than 476 experts contributed taxonomic and/or faunistic information for Fauna Europaea. The vast majority of the experts are from Europe (including EU non-member states). As a unique feature, Fauna Europaea funds were set aside for paying/compensating for the work of taxonomic specialists and group coordinators (around five Euro per species).
To facilitate data transfer and data import, sophisticated on-line (web interfaces) and offline (spreadsheets) data-entry routines have been built, well integrated within an underlying central Fauna Europaea transaction database (see Fig. 12). This includes advanced batch data import routines and utilities to display and monitor the data processing within the system. In retrospect, it seems that the off-line submission of data was probably the best for bulk import during the project phase, while the on-line tool was preferred to enter modifications in later versions. This system was operational until 2013 when dismantled for replacement to MfN.
For accumulating the data a Visual Basic tool was developed by Henk van Achterberg, including an export routine converting the underlying MS Access database into a suitable data import format (Fig. 13). This tool is still used for updating the database and is available for general use in other Fauna Europaea groups as well.  Furthermore, all Fauna Europaea data sets are intensively reviewed at regional and thematic validation meetings, at review sessions on taxonomic symposia (for some groups), by Fauna Europaea Focal Points (during the FaEu-NAS and PESI projects) and by various end-users sending annotations using the web form at the web-portal. Additional validation on gaps and correct spelling was effected at the validation office in Paris.
Checks on technical and logical correctness of the data were implemented by the data entry tools, including around 50 'Taxonomic Integrity Rules'. This validation tool proved to be of considerable value for both the taxonomic specialists and project management, and significantly contributed to the preparation of a remarkably clean and consistent data set.
This thorough review procedure makes Fauna Europaea the most scrutinised data set in its domain. In general we expected to get taxonomic data for 99.3% of the known European fauna directly after the initial release of Fauna Europaea . The faunistic coverage is not quite as good, but is nevertheless 90-95% of the total fauna. Recognised gaps in Hymenoptera (Symphyta & Ichneumonoidea) are in major subfamilies of the Braconidae (e.g., small Opiinae, Alysiinae, Microgastrinae) and Ichneumonidae (especially Cryptinae and Campopleginae) (see Table 1).
To optimise the use and implementation of a uniform and correct nomenclature, a crossreferencing of the Fauna Europaea Hymenoptera (Symphyta & Ichneumonoidea) data-set with relevant taxonomic resources is recommended, also supporting the global efforts on establishing a global taxonomic resolution service, provisionally called 'Global Names Architecture' (Pyle andMichel 2008, Jong de et al. 2014). Applicable nomenclature databases specifically dedicated to these taxonomic groups include: the world catalogue on Ichneumonoidea: Taxapad (Yu et al. 2016) and the Electronic World Catalog of Symphyta: ECatSym (Taeger et al. 2010, Taeger et al. 2011. As a preparation, a semiautomatic validation on the Taxapad dataset has been carried out, using the PESI Taxon Match Tool and LifeWatch Backbone services. The result is used to annotate discrepancies between both Taxapad and Fauna Europaea and to mark gaps in the current version of Fauna Europaea, supporting data validation (Suppl. material 1).
Step description: By evaluating team structure and life cycle procedures (data-entry, validation, updating, etc.), clear definitions of roles of users and user-groups, according to the taxonomic framework were established, including ownership and read and write privileges, and their changes during the project life-cycle. In addition, guidelines on common data exchange formats and codes have been issued (see also Suppl. material 2). th

Geographic coverage
Description: Species and subspecies distributions in Fauna Europaea are registered at least a country level, meaning political countries. For this purpose the FaEu geographical system basically follows the TDWG standards. The covered area includes the European mainland (Western Palaearctic), plus the Macaronesian islands (excl. Cape Verde Islands), Cyprus, Franz Josef Land and Novaya Zemlya. Western Kazakhstan and the Caucasus are excluded (see Fig. 11).
The focus is on species (or subspecies) of European multicellular animals of terrestrial and freshwater environments. Species in brackish waters, occupying the marine/freshwater or marine/terrestrial transition zones, are generally excluded.
Coordinates: Mediterranean and Arctic Latitude; Atlantic Ocean (Azores) and Ural Longitude.

Taxonomic coverage
Description: The Fauna Europaea database contains the scientific names of all living European land and freshwater animal species, including numerous infra-groups and synonyms. More details about the conceptual background of Fauna Europaea and standards followed are described in the project description papers.