Working Group on Iberican Lucanidae (GTLI)

Justification and objectives
Fragmentation, degradation, or loss of some Lucanidae natural habitats begs the question of whether, in the future, anthropic habitats will be able to sustain viable populations for those species. In particular, Lucanus cervus survives in United Kingdom in suburban areas, aside of the increasingly fragmented deciduous forests. To quantify the presence of Lucanidae in towns can help to evaluate whether viable populations of those species can be expected in humanized environments.

Information available in the GTLI data base shows the presence of Lucanus cervus within several Spanish cities: Santiago de Compostela (La Coruña), Oviedo, Gijón and Avilés (Asturias), Santander (Cantabria), San Sebastián (Guipúzcoa), Soria and Cuenca. It is not known whether the species keeps stable populations within those towns or findings correspond to migrant individuals from close suburban areas. The objective of this project is to ellaborate a data base about the presence of Lucanidae (mainly L. cervus) within several spanish cities, in order to answer the following questions:

• ¿Are there Lucanidae within the towns?
• ¿Are they more frequent in areas with tress, such as parks and gardens, which could point to the presence of stable populations?
• ¿Do they appear in periferal areas of the towns, which could point to their arrival from suburban areas?

To these basic questions it can be added, in the future, more detailed aspects such as the management of urban gardens in order to favour the establishment or maintenance of Lucanidae populations.

Results
As an example, the results of a survey of the presence of Lucanus cervus at the San Francisco city park of Oviedo (Asturias, NW Spain) during summer 1994 are presented.

How to collaborate
1.- Sending to GTLI contact address your observations of any Lucanidae species within towns. Information requested is: species, date, city, street, number of the street, conservation status (alive, damaged, dead) and habitat. It is very important to learn how to distinguish the different Lucanidae species, especially differences between Lucanus and Pseudolucanus, and between the different Platycerus species. Check the determination keys and species figures within the section “Iberian Lucanidae”.

2.- Establishing a monitoring scheme for an urban park, in which Lucanidae individuals found are mapped. This will help to define the areas of the park potentially important for the species.