The situation of the genus Dianous (Staphylinidae: Steninae) in Turkey and its dark spots in the World Zoogeography

Abstract

The Staphylinidae family is the most species-rich and ecologically diverse insect family (Parker, 2017). Steninae is one of the most species-rich subfamilies in Staphylinidae and has two genera. One of them is Stenus and the other is Dianous. The genus Dianous has 262 species (Puthz, 2016, 2021). In Turkey, only two species belonging to the genus Dianous were identified and three subspecies of one of these species were given (Puthz, 1979, 1981, 2002; Turan&Sert, 2019, 2021). When the studies carried out in Turkey are examined, it has been seen that there are very few studies on this genus in our country. Only records from the Eastern Black Sea Region, Erciyes Mountain in the Central Anatolia Region, Sultan Mountains in the Aegean Region, Adana in the Mediterranean Region and Bilecik in the Marmara Region are given. Apart from these records, there is no study conducted in other regions of Turkey and potential habitats of species belonging to this genus. For this reason, the Dianous fauna of Turkey is not known clearly. When the world zoogeographic distribution of the genus Dianous is examined, it is seen that there are some question marks. The east of Turkey's Anatolian diagonal is completely uncertain. In addition, there are no records other than Bilecik and Sultan Mountains in the west. However, there are no records of this genus in most of Iran after Turkey, Turkmenistan and a large area of Afghanistan. The question asked here is; why there is no species in these regions? A comprehensive project proposal has been prepared for TÜBITAK in order to reveal the faunistic situation of the genus Dianous in Turkey, to evaluate the zoogeographic situation in the world, to evaluate the future situation of the habitats of this genus, which only lives in waterfall habitats, due to climate change.