Corresponding authors: Emilia Rota (
Academic editor: Christos Arvanitidis
This paper provides updated information on the taxonomic composition and distribution of the
The European Commission published the
With regard to biodiversity in Europe, both science and policies depend on a knowledge of its components. The assessment of biodiversity, monitoring changes, sustainable exploitation of biodiversity, and much legislative work depend upon a validated overview of taxonomic biodiversity. Towards this end Fauna Europaea plays a major role, 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 country level and some additional useful 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 started in 2000 as an EC-FP5 four-years project, delivering its first release in 2004. After Fifteen years of steady progress, in order to efficiently disseminate the Fauna Europaea results and to increase the acknowledgement of the Fauna Europaea contributors, novel e-Publishing tools have been applied to prepare data-papers of all major taxonomic groups. For this purpose a special
Within the EU BON project also further steps will be made to implement
The Fauna Europaea is a database of the scientific names and distribution of all living, currently known multicellular European land and fresh-water animal species assembled by a large network of experts, using advanced electronic tools for data collations and validation routines. An extended description of the Fauna Europaea project backgrounds can be found in
The
Two families whose sister-group relationship is supported by morphological and molecular data (
Cosmopolitan family of minute worms living interstitially or epibenthically mostly in freshwater habitats. Some also occur in damp soils and forest litter; others (
Monotypic family, with one species in Europe (
A family of minute worms endowed with small cephalic palps and antennae and cirri along the body and on the pygidium. They comprise 17 genera and about 48 species, mostly marine interstitial, occurring worldwide from the intertidal to abyssal depths (
This family of unclear phylogenetic position comprises only two species: the marine littoral mesopsammic
A worldwide-distributed family of polychaetes building tubes of calcium carbonate, comprising about 350 species, nearly all marine.
Class
Allochthonous megadrile family with a very wide geographic distribution, most probably non monophyletic. Endemic taxa can be found throughout the southern continents, plus North and Central America (
Monotypic megadrile family endemic to southwestern France. They were regarded as possibly close to the North American
Monotypic megadrile family indigenous to the western Palaearctic. Primitively aquatic,
Microdrile family with worldwide distribution, Polar regions included. The
The vernacular name of the family, pot-worms (fr. Greek '
About half of the currently accepted inland species have their type localities in Europe, where collecting and taxonomic work has always been comparatively intense. The northernmost latitudes of the Holarctic, particularly Beringia (refs. in
The correct evaluation of species taxonomic status and distribution is a fundamental prerequisite in assessing biodiversity in any geographical region. Both these aspects are still in a state of uncertainty for many European components of the family. According to the published records, a fair number of species would appear Holarctic or even cosmopolitan. However, besides the mentioned sampling biases, many records date back to a time when identifications were based on either ambiguous diagnoses and/or inadequate examinations. Since the mid-1990s, there has been an effort to better characterize the species through an enlarged and univocal set of features (e.g.
The
Megadrile earthworms indigenous to the tropical forests of South and Central America, with clitellum beginning near segment 14, endowed with tubercula pubertatis. Male pores either inconspicuous or within copulatory chambers. Dorsal pores lacking, oesophageal gizzard in segment 6; extramural calciferous glands in some or all of segments 7-14; typhlosole present. Holoic with nephridial bladders in intestinal region. Spermathecae adiverticulate, in front of the gonadal segments. The family in this classical acception harbours 200 species and 25 genera, but molecular phylogeny has recently revealed it as polyphyletic (
Megadrile family endemic to the western Mediterranean region, whose distinctness from the common European earthworms (
Megadrile family endemic to the Holarctic (Figs
The
In the first version of the Fauna Europaea database in 2004, the family
At the higher levels, while the molecular data in
Allochthonous megadrile family, very widely distributed, whose most ancient taxa show a predominant southeastern distribution (Australia, New Zealand, southeastern Asia), but with a tribe, the
Allochthonous family of small, filiform, semiaquatic megadriles, sister taxon to the
The earthworm genus
Endemic species of
Monogeneric microdrile family, endemic to the Palaearctic region. Although fully aquatic, it is dealt with in this paper because of its historical taxonomic association with the
The only propappid species occurring in Europe, the proboscidate, interstitial
Megadrile family of very slender worms, measuring as adults 70-200 mm in length and 2-3.5 mm in maximal width, spending their life in the mud or amongst the roots of aquatic plants. The family comprises one genus and about a dozen species, nearly all restricted to the southeastern USA. The type species,
Besides England, the occurrence of the family outside of America is limited to France, Switzerland, Germany, Italy (
This BDJ data paper includes and updates the taxonomic indexing efforts in the Fauna Europaea on European
The taxonomic framework of Fauna Europaea includes
Every taxonomic group is covered by at least one Group Coordinator responsible for the supervision and integrated input of taxonomic and distributional data of a particular group. 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 rested with a number of Taxonomic Specialists (see Table
Data management tasks are taken care of by the Fauna Europaea project bureau. During the project phase (until 2004) a network of principal partners took care about diverse management tasks:
On the available expert capacity, presently, in Europe faunistic, systematic and taxonomic studies on terrestrial Annelida (clitellate and non-clitellate) species are actively carried out in Italy (
The area study covers the European mainland (Western Palearctic), including the Macaronesian islands, excluding the Caucasus, Turkey, Arabian Peninsula and Northern Africa (see: Geographic coverage section).
See spatial coverage and geographic coverage descriptions.
Fauna Europaea data have been assembled by principal taxonomic experts, based on their individual expertise, including literature sources, 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 rewarding/compensating for the work of taxonomic specialists and group coordinators.
To facilitate data transfer and data import, sophisticated on-line (web interfaces) and off-line (spreadsheets) data-entry routines were built, integrated within an underlying central Fauna Europaea transaction database (Fig.
A first release of the Fauna Europaea index via the web-portal had been presented at 27th of September 2004, the most recent release (version 2.6.2) was launched on 29 August 2013. An overview of Fauna Europaea releases can be found here:
Fauna Europaea data are unique in the sense that they are fully expert based. Selecting leading experts for all groups assured the systematic reliability and consistency of the Fauna Europaea data.
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 is being done by the validation office in Paris.
In general we expect to get taxonomic data for 99.3% of the known European fauna after the initial release. The faunistic coverage is not quite as good, but is nevertheless 90-95% of the total fauna. For terrestrial Annelida-Oligochaeta (terrestrial) the current taxonomic coverage is about 93% (see Table
Gaps of knowledge in this group are difficult to quantify. For some families, the number of existing species has remained unchanged for years and only molecular taxonomy may alter it. With regard to the
Checks on technical and logical correctness of the data have been implemented in the data entry tools, including around
To optimise the use and implementation of a uniform and correct nomenclature, a cross-referencing of the
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's life-cycle. In addition, guidelines on common data exchange formats and codes have been issued (see also the '
Species and subspecies distributions in Fauna Europaea are registered at least to country level, i.e. for political countries. For this purpose the FaEu geographical system basically follows the TDWG standards. The covered area includes the European mainland (Western Palearctic), plus the Macaronesian islands (excl. Cape Verde Islands), Cyprus, Franz Josef Land and Novaya Zemlya. Western Kazakhstan and the Caucasus are excluded (see Fig.
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.
Additional notes and updating information on the geographic coverage of Annelida – Oligochaeta (terrestrial:
On global coverage:
On European coverage: New records for Portugal includes (
On global coverage:
On European coverage: A new record for Turkey includes:
On global coverage:
On European and global coverage:
On European and global coverage:
On global coverage: new records: Japan (EPA38) (
In the last 15 years, many new and known species of enchytraeids have been described in good detail. This effort and the sampling of new areas and environments have not only increased the length of the local inventories (for some countries the list has been almost doubled) but also improved their quality.
On European coverage:
On European coverage:
In addition to the newly discovered species, in the last 10 years single new records, checklists and biogeographical analyses have been produced for the lumbricid faunas of several countries (e.g. Portugal, Ireland, Great Britain, Germany, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Albania, Greece) and mountain systems (Carpathians, Stara Planina, Balkans) (
On European coverage:
On European coverage:
On European coverage:
On global coverage:
On European coverage:
Mediterranean (N 35°) and Arctic Islands (N 82°) Latitude; Atlantic Ocean (Mid-Atlantic Ridge) (W 30°) and Ural (E 60°) Longitude.
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 above and in the project description paper(s).
This data paper covers the Annelida Oligochaeta (terrestrial:
Additional notes and details of updating information on the taxonomic status and coverage of Annelida – Oligochaeta (terrestrial),
According to
The correct year of publication of
A useful key to the European terrestrial enchytraeids has recently been published by
The taxonomic novelties considered here are the following:
The following names are considered as species complexes, their taxonomy being currently still unresolved:
The correct year of publication of
Taxonomic comments:
Species to be added as valid:
Since the first version of the Fauna Europaea database in 2004, some 17 new species have been described from our continent and the status of some known species has been formally revised (
The oligochaete suprafamilial rankings, as they were published in FaEu 2004 and listed below, need revision. No adjustments to the rankings were introduced in this paper.
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Currently living animals in stable populations, largely excluding (1) rare/irregular immigrants, intruder or invader species, (2) accidental or deliberate releases of exotic (pet) species, (3) domesticated animals, (4) foreign species imported and released for bio-control or (5) foreign species largely confined to hothouses.
Open Data Commons Attribution License
Fauna Europaea data are licensed under
Fauna Europaea - Annelida-Oligochaeta
2
Fauna Europaea - Annelida-Oligochaeta version 2.6.2 - species
CSV
UTF-8
Column label | Column description |
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datasetName | The name identifying the data set from which the record was derived ( |
version | Release version of data set. |
versionIssued | Issue data of data set version. |
rights | Information about rights held in and over the resource ( |
rightsHolder | A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource ( |
accessRights | Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status ( |
taxonID | An identifier for the set of taxon information ( |
parentNameUsageID | An identifier for the name usage of the direct parent taxon (in a classification) of the most specific element of the scientificName ( |
scientificName | The full scientific name, with authorship and date information if known ( |
acceptedNameUsage | The full name, with authorship and date information if known, of the currently valid (zoological) taxon ( |
originalNameUsage | The original combination (genus and species group names), as firstly established under the rules of the associated nomenclaturalCode ( |
family | The full scientific name of the family in which the taxon is classified ( |
familyNameId | An identifier for the family name. |
genus | The full scientific name of the genus in which the taxon is classified ( |
subgenus | The full scientific name of the subgenus in which the taxon is classified. Values include the genus to avoid homonym confusion ( |
specificEpithet | The name of the first or species epithet of the scientificName ( |
infraspecificEpithet | The name of the lowest or terminal infraspecific epithet of the scientificName, excluding any rank designation ( |
taxonRank | The taxonomic rank of the most specific name in the scientificName ( |
scientificNameAuthorship | The authorship information for the scientificName formatted according to the conventions of the applicable nomenclaturalCode ( |
authorName | The four-digit year in which the scientificName was published ( |
namePublishedInYear | The four-digit year in which the scientificName was published ( |
Brackets | Annotation if authorship should be put between parentheses. |
nomenclaturalCode | The nomenclatural code under which the scientificName is constructed ( |
taxonomicStatus | The status of the use of the scientificName as a label for a taxon ( |
resourceDescription | An account of the resource, including a data-paper DOI ( |
Fauna Europaea - Annelida-Oligochaeta version 2.6.2 - hierarchy
CSV
UTF-8
Column label | Column description |
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datasetName | The name identifying the data set from which the record was derived ( |
version | Release version of data set. |
versionIssued | Issue data of data set version. |
rights | Information about rights held in and over the resource ( |
rightsHolder | A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource ( |
accessRights | Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status ( |
taxonName | The full scientific name of the higher-level taxon |
scientificNameAuthorship | The authorship information for the scientificName formatted according to the conventions of the applicable nomenclaturalCode ( |
taxonRank | The taxonomic rank of the most specific name in the scientificName ( |
taxonID | An identifier for the set of taxon information ( |
parentNameUsageID | An identifier for the name usage of the direct parent taxon (in a classification) of the most specific element of the scientificName ( |
resourceDescription | An account of the resource, including a data-paper DOI ( |
Enchytraeid species crawling through
Epigeic lumbricid earthworms and their cocoons.
Specimens of
Fauna Europaea on-line (browser interfaces) and off-line (spreadsheets) data entry tools.
Fauna Europaea geographic coverage ('minimal Europe').
FaEu
Responsible specialists per family in
TAXONOMY | EUROPE | ||||
CLASS | FAMILY | SPECIALIST(S) | DATABASED SPECIES (Fauna Europaea) | TOTAL DESCRIBED SPECIES (information-gap) | COMMENT |
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Emilia Rota | 24 | 23 | |
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Emilia Rota | 1 | 1 | |
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Emilia Rota | 1 | 1 | |
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Emilia Rota | 2 | 2 | Including |
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Emilia Rota | 1 | 1 | |
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Emilia Rota | 2 | 2 | |
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Emilia Rota | 1 | 1 | |
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Emilia Rota | 2 | 2 | |
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Emilia Rota | 233 | 274 | By addition of 2 new records, 39 new species, 6 synonymies, 6 reinstated species |
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Emilia Rota | 1 | 1 | |
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Emilia Rota | 1 | 1 | |
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Emilia Rota | 11 | 22 | By addition of 2 new species and 9 reinstated species |
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Emilia Rota | 432 | 446 | By addition of 17 new species and 3 synonymies |
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Emilia Rota | 13 | 14 | One new record in greenhouses |
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Emilia Rota | 3 | 3 | |
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Emilia Rota | 4 | 4 | |
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Emilia Rota | 1 | 1 | |
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Emilia Rota | 2 | 1 | By deletion of 1 synonym |