Faunistic notes on the noctuoid moths (Lepidoptera, Noctuoidea) in the Lucchese Apennines of Tuscany, Italy

Abstract

Insects have been used as indicators of the state of environmental quality due to their ecological characteristics and role at many different trophic levels. In parcticular, moths are used as indicators to monitor the recovery of vegetation following environmental stress or as early warnings to measure the effects of environmental change at a local scale. For this type of evaluation, timed series of catch data from the same areas are of fundamental importance as reference data. Here we report the results of a year of sampling in areas of the Lucchese Apennines in Tuscany, Italy. These sites were previously sampled in the late 1970s. The results of this annotated list of species show a decrease in the number of species present in the study area that is not compensated by new records not sampled in the past.

Keywords

• Checklist
• climate change
• indicator species