Three natural parks in Comunidad Valenciana were selected: Natural Park of La Font Roja; Natural Park of Las Lagunas de la Mata-Torrevieja and Natural Park of La Tinença de Benifassà, each of which features peculiar microclimate conditions.

The Natural Park of La Font Roja is located to the north of Alicante province, and is known for its low level of anthropogenic disturbance. The park extends over 2,298 ha, with a maximum elevation of 1,356 m. The orientation of the hill range favours cool, moist winds from the northeast, resulting in rainfall retention. This fact, along with the steep slopes and the predominance of limestone, fosters the existence of different landscape units. Among these, deciduous forests, brushwood, scrub rock vegetation, pine forests and agricultural areas can be differentiated. In addition, each face experiences different climate conditions: the north face is classified as upper sub-humid, with annual rainfall between 600–1,000 mm; while the south face is dry, with annual rainfall between 350–600 mm. Due to high average temperatures throughout the year (15–20 °C), and the low average rainfall, the park is classified is dry and thermo-Mediterranean.

The Natural Park of Las Lagunas de la Mata-Torrevieja is located to the south of Alicante province, and extends over 3,700 ha, 2,100 of which are covered by water. The park is notable for its saline soils, extensive wild orchid population (Orchis collina Banks and Sol. ex Russell), differentiated areas of Senecio auricula Bourgeau ex Coss and salt marsh plants of the genus Limonium, reed and bulrush areas with abundant grass plants such as Arthrocnemum sp. and Juncus sp., and Mediterranean areas populated by Quercus coccifera L., Pinus halepensis Mill. and Thymus sp. The climate is arid with an annual rainfall below 300 mm and high temperatures.

The Natural Park of La Tinença de Benifassà is located to the north of Castellón province, and extends over approximately 25,814 ha. The park covers an extensive and well-preserved mountainous area, encompassing numerous and widely varied landscapes associated with medium and high-altitude Mediterranean regimes and hosting a high biodiversity of fauna and flora. It is possible to differentiate forests of Pinus sylvestris L., Pinus uncinata Mill. and Fagus sylvatica L., Juniperus communis L., and Quercus ilex L., etc., alternating with crops of Prunus sp., Corylus sp., etc. Climate conditions are continental humid, with annual average temperatures below 12 °C: freezing conditions are possible throughout most of the year. Rainfall varies in different zones according to topographical features, and the annual precipitation ranges from 600 to 1,000 l/m². The park is contained within the supramediterranean bioclimate.

Sampling stage covered the period among April 2004 and December 2007. During this period, in each natural park, a Malaise trap to collected specimens was placed. Weekly, each area was visited to replace the collecting bottle. Specimens captured were preserved in 70% ethanol until final preparation.

Once separated, the specimens were determined by subfamily keys of van Achterberg (1990) to work only with Alysiinae specimens. Subsequently, the identification to genera was carried out using van Achterberg (1990) key. Finally, species identification was did it by Fischer (1993b), Fischer (2003), Fischer et al. (2008a), Fischer et al. (2008b) and Tobias' keys (Tobias et al. 1986). The studied specimens are deposited with a bar code labels in the Entomological Collection at the University of Valencia (Valencia, Spain; ENV). General distribution data were provide from Yu et al. (2012).

Once the specimens of Aspilota-group had been identified, alpha, beta and gamma biodiversity indexes for each trap and habitat were calculated to gain insight into the richness, abundance, dominance and complementarity values of each area.

Alpha diversity reflects the richness in species of a homogeneous community. This sort of diversity was measured by taxa richness, abundance and dominance.

• Taxa richness: used for valuing richness of sampling areas. It was measured using the Margalef index, a measure of specific richness that transforms the number of species per sample into the proportion to which the species are added by expansion of the sample, establishing a functional relationship between number of species and total number of specimens (Moreno 2001).
• Species richness estimators: It was measured using Chao 2 to know what percentage of the total known species of possible species (Moreno 2001).
• Abundance: used for valuing faunal composition of a given area (Magurran 1988). This was undertaken using the Shannon-Weaver index because it measures equity, indicating the degree of uniformity in species representation (in order of abundance) while considering all samples. This index measures the average degree of uncertainty that predicts which species an individual randomly picked from a sample belongs to (Magurran 1988, Moreno 2001, Villarreal et al. 2004).
• Dominance: occurrence of genera or dominance value was calculated with the Simpson index, often used to measure species dominance values in a given community, with negative values thus representing equity. It measures the representativity of the most important species without considering the other species present. It expresses the probability that two individuals randomly picked from a sample will belong to the same species (Magurran 1988).
• Community structure: In order to complement the diversity analyses and enquire into community structure, log-series, log-normal and broken-stick models were also applied (Magurran 1988). The log-series model represents a community composed of a few abundant species and a high number of rare species. The broken-stick model refers to maximum occupation of an environment with equitable sharing of resources between species. Finally, the log-normal reflects an intermediate situation between the two (Soares et al. 2010). Using the data obtained from the parks, each of these models was applied to calculate the expected number of species, and log₂ grouping species according to abundance (Magurran 1988, Tokeshi 1993, Krebs 1999). To test the significance of the models, the expected species values were compared with those of the observed species through chi-square analysis (Zar 1999).

Beta diversity is the degree of change or substitution in species composition between different communities within the same landscape. In order to measure beta diversity, Jaccard and Complementarity indexes were used and cluster analyses were also performed.

• Jaccard index: relates the total amount of shared species to the total amount of exclusive species. It is a qualitative coefficient, the interval of which will go from 0 when no species are shared between both sites to 1 when both sites have an identical composition (Moreno 2001, Villarreal et al. 2004).
• Complementarity index: indicates the degree of similarity in species composition and abundance between two or more communities (Moreno 2001, Villarreal et al. 2004).
• Cluster analysis: employed to calculate the degree of correlation based on similarity/dissimilarity. For the calculation of these values, statistics-processing software PAST was used (Hammer et al. 2001).

Finally, gamma diversity measurement indicates the diversity value of all environments under study, as expressed in the richness indexes for each area (alpha diversity) and the difference between them (beta diversity) (Schluter and Ricklefs 1993, Villarreal et al. 2004).