S. Mahunka szerk.: Folia Entomologica Hungarica 57. (Budapest, 1996)

ROVARTANI KÖZLEMÉNYEK LVII 1996 pp. 171-196 High insect diversity in a poor habitat (dry sheep-runs in Hungary) L. Papp and L. Ádám High insect diversity in a poor habitat (dry sheep-runs in Hungary) — Pan trapping was performed in two Transdanubian and one Kiskunság NP dry sheep-runs in order to survey aerial plankton as source of the elements of coleopteran and dipteran assemblages. The species diversity of the insects landed on given points of sheep-runs from the aerial plankton is surprisingly high (30 sample series, 4x4><0.1 m

2 samples each with more than 23 thousand insects, mainly flies). Altogether nearly 500 species of insects were recorded. Among the species collected Homalometopus platycephalus (Becker) represents a genus new to the Hungarian fauna. Coprophagous species, autochthonous species of the grassland and also species developing in other ecosystems were trapped. Although the species in the last group are not members of the coprophagous or pasture assemblages, sheep-runs serve as stepping stones or buffer zones for numerous insect populations in mosaic landscapes. INTRODUCTION In order to detect the sources of coprophagous and other populations of sheep-run flies, pan-trapping of the insects falling down from the air-plankton was performed parallel to collections with isolators over sheep droppings (for details see Papp 1995). Since the method used is much goal-selective, we do not think our results to be fully realistic for the quantitative abundance relations of the insect populations in sheep-runs, or even the trapping results to be representative for the total insect fauna (cf. Györffy and Kincsek 1986, 1988). However, all these "additional results" seem worth publishing in view of the species richness found and of the quantity of specimens changing the actual place of staying, judged by this method. For the qualitative results on coprophagous populations and for the bibliography of some other works than in the references below see Papp (1995). MATERIALS AND METHODS The collections were made on three dry sheep-runs in Hungary; one of them is a part of the Kiskunság National Park (Hungarian Great Plain, Central Hungary), the other two are in Transdanubia. Kunszentmiklós, Janovics-hodályok [sheep-pens] (below KSZ): 90-100 m a.s.l., on the old inundation area of Danube, alkaline grassland on sandy, secondarily salinated, This study was supported by the Hungarian National Scientific Research Fund (OTKA) No. 3188 in sample collecting and by No. T16892 in the elaboration of the material.