Biodiversity Data Journal :
Data Paper (Biosciences)
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Corresponding author: Filippo Maria Maria Buzzetti (buzzettifilippo@fondazionemcr.it)
Academic editor: Edward Baker
Received: 15 Mar 2021 | Accepted: 20 May 2021 | Published: 30 Jun 2021
© 2021 Filippo Maria Buzzetti, Gionata Stancher, Federico Marangoni
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Buzzetti FMM, Stancher G, Marangoni F (2021) Sixty years of work on Italy’s Orthopteroids biodiversity, the big data of Galvagni collection. Biodiversity Data Journal 9: e65953. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.9.e65953
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Historical natural history collections are very important for the study of nature and environmental protection of the environment, these being the depository of essential information. The Fondazione Museo Civico di Rovereto holds two major Orthopteroid insect collections that make this Museum a landmark on Italian and Mediterranean Orthoptera diversity. Databasing the Galvagni Collection allows considerations on geographic and taxonomic coverage by specialist researchers.
Databasing of the Galvagni Collection makes possible considerations on the late specialist research, geographic and taxonomic coverage.
Natural Science Museum, Italy, entomology collection, biodiversity
The Fondazione Museo Civico of Rovereto (FMCR) is an Italian civic museum founded in 1851. The Museum contains many collections ranging from natural sciences and archaeology to art, but the entomological, botanical and archaeological collections are of greater relevance. In fact, these count more than 286,980 exhibits and are the data source of many scientific publications. The first collections date back to the years of the Museum foundation, but unfortunately, part of these were lost during World War I. The collections of the FMCR have grown during nearly 200 years of the foundation , so that the number of collections and exhibits, curated in the Museum, is continuously increasing. Currently, at the FMCR, there are four entomological collections of both national and international relevance given the presence of many types: the Bernardino Halbherr Collection is composed mainly of Coleoptera, the Livio Tamanini Collection consists of Hemiptera and Coleoptera, the Antonio Galvagni Collection gathers Orthopteroid Insects and the Collection, recently donated by Paolo Fontana, also about Orthopteroid Insects. The first three Collections are mainly composed of specimens collected within the Italian borders, while, on the other hand, specimens of the Fontana Collection come from all over the world, but mainly Italy and Central America. Museum collections are reservoirs of non-renewable information (
The work carried out on the Galvagni Collection took three years of work (2016 - 2019) between reorganisation, restoration of some boxes and digital databasing. The collection as it entered the Museum was in a good state, even after some years of no maintenance by the owner. Nevertheless, to avoid any sort of possible infestation, it was subjected to freezing treatment using large refrigerators present in the Museum. Afterwards, the entomological boxes in the FMCR deposit began to be arranged, cleaned and restored. Finally the systematic collection, that part of the Galvagni Collection identified and arranged according to current taxonomy, was digitally databased in the Museum catalogue. This consists of 219 boxes and is available on the website www.fondazionemcr.it in the subsection Archives/Sections of the Museum/Zoology-Insects, after registration in the Museum portal (Fig.
Database of FMCR available on www.fondazionemcr.it subsection Archives.
The Antonio Galvagni Collection is made up mostly (85%) of Italian specimens, plus others (15%) from the Mediterranean Basin and beyond. With this work, we want to underline the investigation carried out in the Italian regions. As shown in Table
Total of specimens, types and holotypes conserved in the Galvani’s systematic collection.
Orders |
Number of specimens |
Types |
Holotypes |
Mantodea |
138 |
1 |
1 |
Blattodea |
4434 |
32 |
3 |
Orthoptera |
25014 |
320 |
33 |
Dermaptera |
2450 |
29 |
3 |
Phasmatodea |
10 |
0 |
0 |
Concerning the altitudinal distribution of Orthoptera, it is observed that there is a trend for which the Orthoptera increase with the altitude, showing a peak between 1800–2000 m, while the other orders are mostly found below 1400 m (Fig.
2) in general, the number of specimens collected is lower on the valley floor or in coastal areas, as these areas are often highly anthropogenised, therefore lacking suitable habitats.
; .
The 32,046 specimens of the Galvagni Collection consist of 138 Mantodea (5 species), 4,434 Blattodea (30 species), 25,014 Orthoptera (365 taxa), 2,450 Dermaptera (25 species) and 10 Phasmatodea (Table
Although Antonio Galvagni collected all the orthopteroid groups, his studies concentrated on some genera and this is mostly evident by the fact that many specimens of target taxa are dissected and their genitalia prepared for a deeper study. Some examples of the most studied genera are: amongst Orthoptera Rhacocleis
In addition to these numbers, we also report a list of all those taxa described by Antonio Galvagni that are still valid for science (
Rank | Scientific Name |
---|---|
order | Mantodea |
species | Ameles andreae (Galvagni, 1976) |
order | Blattodea |
species | Ectobius caprai Galvagni, 1971 |
species | Ectobius tamaninii Galvagni, 1972 |
species | Ectobius tuscus Galvagni, 1978 |
order | Orthoptera |
subspecies | Capraiuscola ebneri ebneri (Galvagni, 1953) |
species | Ephippiger ruffoi Galvagni, 1955 |
species | Platycleis concii Galvagni, 1959 |
subspecies | Metrioptera caprai baccettii Galvagni, 1959 |
species | Rhacocleis baccettii Galvagni, 1976 |
species | Rhacocleis bonfilsi Galvagni, 1976 |
species | Pterolepis elymica Galvagni & Massa, 1980 |
subspecies | Pterolepis spoliata kaltenbachi Galvagni, 1981 |
subspecies | Pterolepis spoliata llorenteae Galvagni, 1981 |
subspecies | Pterolepis spoliata nadigi Galvagni, 1981 |
subspecies | Pterolepis spoliata nevadensis Galvagni, 1981 |
subspecies | Pterolepis spoliata pascuali Galvagni, 1981 |
subspecies | Pterolepis spoliata raggei Galvagni, 1981 |
subspecies | Rhacocleis silviarum Galvagni, 1984 |
subspecies | Pterolepis adolphorum (Galvagni, 1988) |
subspecies | Pterolepis claudiae (Galvagni, 1988) |
subspecies | Pterolepis moralesi (Galvagni, 1988) |
subspecies | Pterolepis berberica berberica (Galvagni, 1989) |
subspecies | Ctenodecticus bolivari africanus Galvagni, 1990 |
species | Barbitistes vicetinus Galvagni & Fontana, 1993 |
species | Pterolepis kabylica (Galvagni & Fontana, 2000) |
species | Pterolepis augustini (Galvagni, 2001) |
species | Anonconotus ligustinus Galvagni, 2002 |
species | Anonconotus sibyllinus Galvagni, 2002 |
species | Dolichopoda (Dolichopoda) pavesii Galvagni, 2002 |
species | Anonconotus mercantouri Galvagni & Fontana, 2003 |
species | Dolichopoda (Dolichopoda) lycia (Galvagni, 2006) |
species | Chrysochraon beybienkoi Galvagni, 1968 |
species | Podisma magdalenae Galvagni, 1971 |
species | Italopodisma lagrecai (Galvagni, 1973) |
subspecies | Heteracris adspersa massai Galvagni, 1978 |
genus | Nadigella Galvagni, 1986 |
species | Pseudopodisma transilvanica Galvagni & Fontana, 1993 |
species | Pseudopodisma nagyi Galvagni & Fontana, 1996 |
order | Dermaptera |
species | Chelidurella guentheri Galvagni, 1994 |
species | Chelidurella vignai Galvagni, 1994 |
species | Chelidurella fontanai Galvagni, 1996 |
Antonio Galvagni began to capture specimens intensively from 1940 and continued until he lost the strength to collect; his collection covers more than 60 years of Italian natural history. From the trend of the graph in Fig.
Even if there are peaks of collecting activity, during his whole life, Galvagni collected an average of 400 specimens every year.
The Galvagni Collection database can be downloaded as supplementary material (Suppl. material
Column label | Column description |
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Section | Museum section to which the material is related |
Sub-section | Museum Sub-section to which the material is related |
Number of specimens | How many specimens are databased |
Object name | Name of the species |
Continent | Continent from which the specimen comes |
Country | Country from which the specimen comes |
Region | Region from which the specimen comes |
Province | Province from which the specimen comes |
City | City from which the specimen comes |
Locality | Locality from which the specimen comes |
Location | Institution where the specimen is preserved |
Collection | Collection of the museum where the specimen is preserved |
Specific Position | Number of the entomological box where the specimen is preserved |
Board | Inventory paper board, when available |
Phylum | Phylum to which the specimens belong |
Class | Class to which the specimens belong |
Order | Order to which the specimens belong |
Family | Family to which the specimens belong |
Genus | Genus to which the specimens belong |
Species | Species to which the specimens belong |
Species Author | Author of the species |
Subspecies | Subspecies to which the specimens belong |
Subspecies Author | Author of the subspecies |
Number of males | Number of male specimens |
Stage of males | Stage of development of the preserved specimens |
Number of females | Number of female specimens |
Stage of females | Stage of development of the preserved specimens |
Mounting Method | Procedure used to prepare the specimens |
Conservation status | Conditions of the specimens (good, bad, broken etc.) |
Lowest altitude | Lowest altitude of the collecting locality |
highest altitude | Highest altitude of the collecting locality |
Collecting date 1 | First date of period in which the specimens have been collected |
Collecting date 2 | Last date of period in which the specimens have been collected |
Collector | Who collected the specimens |
Reviewer | Who reviewed the data entry |
Revision date | Date in which the revision was made |
Notes | Additional info about identification, type material etc. |
Natural History Museums collections are important for homeland security, public health and safety, monitoring of environmental change, taxonomy and systematics (
The Italian Natural History Museums are in a difficult situation due to many factors (
We thank here Christine Rothwell B.A.Dip.Ed. and Lucio Sirca B.A. (Melbourne, Australia) for proofreading the text, Eleonora Zen (Fondazione Museo Civico di Rovereto, Italy) for helping in data analysis, Edward Baker (Natural History Museum, London, UK) for improving the English text.