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. An extended description of the Fauna Europaea project can be found in de Jong et al. 2014. A summary is given in the sections below.

Coleoptera is the largest of the 58 Fauna Europaea major taxonomic groups, covering nearly 29,000 species in Europe [its Coleoptera 2 Section includes > 13,000 species (Fig. 1) and is represented by a network of more than 40 specialists (Table 1)].

Figure 1.  

FaEu Coleoptera species per family. See Table 1 for family statistics. For full resolution see Suppl. material 1.

Coleoptera [Group Coordinators: Paolo Audisio (Coleoptera 2), Miguel Angel Alonso-Zarazaga (Coleoptera 1)]

Coleoptera are the most diverse order of all living animals, and comprise between 360,000 and 400,000 named species worldwide (Chapman 2009; Slipinski et al. 2011; Zhang 2013; Audisio unpublished data), some 100,000 in the Palaearctic Region, and nearly 30,000 in European-Mediterranean areas. Beetles are the dominating insect group in all terrestrial environments, with the single exception of freshwater habitats, where Diptera are represented by a markedly larger number of species. Even using a conservative estimate, there are likely one to three million beetle species on the Earth. Coleoptera are ecologically diverse (Crowson 1981). Most members of the largest ‘basal’ suborder, Adephaga, are predatory in both the larval and imaginal stage, while most members of the huge suborder Polyphaga are phytosaprophagous, mycetophagous, predaceous, phytophagous, or xylophagous. The ‘basal’ suborder Archostemata is represented by a small number of families and species, mostly distributed in tropical areas, and usually associated with saproxylic habitats. The only known W Palaearctic autochtonous species, Crowsoniella relicta Pace from central Italy, exhibits an unknown biology, but it was collected, only once, in hypogeous habitats among tree roots, in carbonatic soils (Ge et al. 2011). In the suborder Adephaga, the largest family is represented by Carabidae, almost all of them having a predaceous life style in terrestrial habitats (relatively few species are seed-eating or myrmecophilous), while other families (e.g., Dytiscidae) inhabit freshwater habitats, where they are mostly predators of other aquatic organisms, only the family Haliplidae includes phytophagous species. The problematic suborder Myxophaga, recently considered questionable from a phylogenetic point of view (Beutel and Haas 2000; Friedrich et al. 2009), is represented by relatively few species mostly associated with mud and wet habitats, chiefly in thermal localities. The huge suborder Polyphaga (including about 90% of Coleoptera worldwide) is a large assemblage of families where both adults and larvae exhibit very diverse life styles. Among members of the large ‘basal’ superfamily Staphylinoidea, there is a prevalence of predaceous beetles. About one-fifth of Staphylinidae however can be characterized as mycetophagous or saprophagous. A smaller part of them (about 10% of European species) may be characterized as phytophagous or myrmecophilous. Most Staphylinoidea are terrestrial, but in a few families (e.g., Hydraenidae) nearly all species are adapted to an aquatic or semi-aquatic life style, even in very peculiar habitats such as hyperhaline marine rock-pools (Antonini et al. 2010; Audisio et al. 2010; Sabatelli et al. 2013). Most Elateroidea are predators, xylosaprophagous, or xylophagous. Cucujoidea are a large and highly diverse superfamily including species which are mostly saprophagous, mycetophagous, predaceous, phytophagous, or xylophagous, with a few families (e.g., Meloidae, Ripiphoridae) known as specialized parasitoids of other insects (Bologna 1991; Bologna et al. 2008; Bologna et al. 2010; Bologna and Di Giulio 2011; Lawrence et al. 2010). Scarabaeoidea include thousands of species mostly associated with dung of vertebrates, or having rhyzophagous or xylosaprophagous larvae, whereas adults are mostly floricolous. Chrysomeloidea include thousands of species within the main families Chrysomelidae and Cerambycidae, mostly phyllophagous and/or floricolous, or with xylophagous larvae (Biondi et al. 2013;Bouchard et al. 2009). Finally, the most speciose superfamily Curculionoidea, feeding on various plant matter, includes many important pests of cultivated crops and forest habitats as well as some important biological control agents of invasive weeds too (e.g., Ceutorhynchini) (Alonso-Zarazaga and Lyal 1999; Oberprieler et al. 2007). About 29,000 species of Coleoptera are listed for Europe (including more than 4,000 Adephaga, and little less than 25,000 Polyphaga); the taxonomic composition of this fauna is far better known than that of any other major region. But the species numbers occurring in the Afrotropical, Indo-Malayan and Neotropical regions are markedly higher, each of them with an estimated number of 70-90,000 named species. Most families of Coleoptera (at least in the largest suborder Polyphaga) are, in fact, largely represented in tropical and subtropical countries. However, the number of species annually added to the European beetle fauna (including autochthonous species new to Science, or firstly discovered in Europe) is relatively constant over time, while the introduction of alien species is continuously increasing, chiefly among the guilds associated with fruit, timber, stored and cultivated products, and ornamental plants (DAISIE 2008). The species accumulation curve, as in other large groups of insects such as Diptera, shows no signs of levelling off (Fontaine et al. 2012; Audisio unpublished data). Among the Adephaga, the most species rich families in the European fauna are Carabidae and Dytiscidae, with nearly 3,800 and 400 species respectively. Among the Polyphaga, the most species rich families in the European fauna are Staphylinidae s.l. (ca. 6,000 species), Curculionidae (> 4,500 species), Chrysomelidae (ca. 1,700 species), Tenebrionidae (> 1,400 species), Leiodidae (ca. 1,200 species), Elateridae and Cerambycidae (ca. 700 species each), Cantharidae (> 500 species), Dytiscidae, Hydraenidae, and Buprestidae (> 400 species each). Much remains certainly to be discovered, because especially Curculionidae, Staphylinidae and some small groups (such as, e.g., Bothrideridae, Alexiidae) were poorly studied by modern taxonomists and are much more diverse than suggested by their current count. Coleoptera are among the most important agricultural pests, attacking all parts of living plants as well as stored products such as woody matter, processed fibers and grains (BUSS and Fasulo 2006). Some of them are among the most serious pests of of beehives (Marini et al. 2013), while other groups are active predators or parasitoids (e.g., Carabidae, Coccinellidae, Meloidae, Cleridae) and play a fundamental role in both natural and cultivated environments, as important biological controllers that regulate the number of aphids, scale insects, wood borer species and locusts. On the other hand, beetles are active decomposers and play a major role in recycling organic waste, chiefly vertebrate dung and carcasses, decaying fruit, fungi and dead wood in forest habitats. Many beetles are, in fact, saproxylic, and are considered excellent indicators of woodland quality (Speight 1989; Nieto and Alexander 2010), several being well-known indicators of old-growth forests. Some flagship- and/or umbrella-species of forest habitats are recognized among the large-sized Lucanidae, Cetoniidae, Cerambycidae, and Cucujidae, which also are target species for biodiversity conservation efforts, and priority species included in annexes II and IV of the EU Habitat Directive. Some of them, like the rare but popular Osmoderma eremita, drives most of the European and local policies on invertebrate conservation biology and forest management (Chiari et al. 2013, Chiari et al. 2014). Other beetles are excellent indicators of quality (Trizzino et al. 2013), and several studies have been aimed to the use of this group as a tool for river quality assessment, for the management of lotic ecosystems (Trizzino et al. 2015), and for the evaluation/prediction of Climate Change’s effects. Finally, the use of certain groups of terrestrial Coleoptera such as ground beetles (Carabidae) and darkling beetles (Tenebrionidae) in the evaluation of the biological quality of the soil is covered by a vast literature (Kotze et al. 2011).

Several species among those in Coleoptera 2 Section have been also included in European Red Lists, such as the recent (although markedly incomplete) IUCN Saproxylic Beetles Red List of Neto & Alexander (Nieto and Alexander 2010). A number of other national, local, and European red lists have been recently published or are in preparation, and the role of Fauna Europaea as a standard reference for all these initiatives is more and more evident. The same is true for a number of pest species, quarantine species, and alien species (chiefly in Nitidulidae, Chrysomelidae, Coccinellidae, Cryptophagidae, Cerambycidae, Curculionidae, and others), whose introduction into Europe, as discussed above, is continuously increasing (Buss and Fasulo 2006; DAISIE 2008; Baviera and Audisio 2014; Audisio et al. 2014).

As shown in Table 1, the taxonomic coverage of Coleoptera 2 Section of the FaEu database is generally good, with few remaining gaps (most of them should be filled in the next upcoming phase of data base updating, probably in Summer 2015). However, certain groups like Ciidae, Cybocephalidae, Cryptophagidae, Bothrideridae, Scraptiidae, and Mordellidae, need the activity of a larger number of specialists both in the field and in museum collections, in order to significantly improve our present-day knowledge in taxonomy and distribution, chiefly in the most potentially species-rich countries of southern Europe. Among the specialists' network, almost all explicitly or implicitly confirmed their participation to the project, although financial support to the project was interrupted some ten years ago. Only a couple of specialists resigned (e.g. in Hydroadephaga) and were replaced during the running activity of file updating, or have recently received the aid of "new" specialists and cooperators of the Group Coordinator PA. Generally speaking, the European network of specialists involved in the Coleoptera 2 Section of the Fauna Europaea Project seems to be relatively consolidated, and open to new (welcome) entries, although there is evidence that in most recent years the European beetle taxonomy community, chiefly at a professional level, has been going through a significant "crisis of vocations", only partially and insufficiently facilitated by the scientific support of a lot of (mostly not young) amateur entomologists (Fontaine et al. 2012). A more extensive and better addressed public financial support, at both European and local levels, should be foreseen in the next years, to prevent the risk of a future dramatic "taxonomic impediment" in the scientific management of European insect biodiversity.

Currently living multicellular, terrestrial and freshwater animals in stable populations, largely excluding (1) rare / irregular immigrants, (2) alien / invasive species, (3) accidental or deliberate releases of exotic (pet)species, (4) domesticated animals, (5) non-native species imported and released for bio-control or (6) non-native species largely confined to hothouses.