ABUNDANCE AND DIVERSITY OF MACRO-MOTHS IN AN ACER-DOMINATEDFOREST OF THE POLLINO NATIONAL PARK, SOUTHERN ITALY(LEPIDOPTERA MACROHETEROCERA)

Abundance and diversity of macro-moths in an Acer-dominated forest of the Pollino National Park, southern Italy (Lepidoptera Macroheterocera).Very few data are available on the biodiversity hosted by Acer-dominated forests in Europe, despite their importance for biodiversity conservation.In this paper we describe the moth assemblage of the Acer-dominated forest of the Special Area of Conservation (SAC) Monte Sparviere, southern Italy, where probably the highest diversity of maple species ( 6) is hosted at national level.We settled up ten monitoring sites, representative of the habitat complexity of the area, where moths were sampled monthly from March to November 2017.We found 371 species of Macroheterocera, among which tree-feeding species (in the larval stage) were particularly abundant and the presumably Acer-feeding Nothocasis rosariae was dominant.Despite a great homogeneity among individual species assemblages (the 26 most abundant species shared by all sites), the quantitative analysis of samples clearly separated pure Acer forests from mixed and Alnus forests, highlighting the importance of quantitative data for improving the use of nocturnal Lepidoptera as bioindicators.The richness of species at their boundary range and of conservation concern, make this area one of the most important for the conservation of Lepidoptera in southern Italy.