Italy has outstanding responsibility in European butterfly conservation, since its fauna is the richest of the continent and includes 37% of the total number of Euro-Mediterranean butterfly species. Among the 289 Italian species, one was recently (passively) introduced from South Africa, 17 are endemic, while the geographical distributions of another 20, classified as sub-endemic, narrowly extends outside the Italian political boundaries. Nevertheless, the extinction risk of Italian butterfly species, based on recognized IUCN standards, has not been assessed so far. To fill this gap, the first Red List evaluation of all Italian 289 butterfly species was undertaken. Current IUCN criteria were applied to data from the CkMap and the “Barcoding Italian Butterflies” datasets, as well as from available regional databases (e.g. Lazio: Monitoring Centre for Biodiversity; Veneto: ARVE Project). Results demonstrate that one species (Lycaena helle) has become Regionally Extinct (RE) in recent times; 18 species (6.3% of the assessed ones) qualified as threatened (1 Critically Endangered (CR), 8 Endangered (EN) and 9 Vulnerable (VU)), while 16 species were classified as Near Threatened (NT). Only for 2 species available data were insufficient to assess extinction risks (DD) and 4 butterflies were considered ineligible for assessment (NA). The remaining 248 species (86% of the total) were classified as of Least Concern. Although the number of Italian threatened species is rather low, the Red List of Italian butterflies provides an important baseline to define conservation priorities and to set up long-term monitoring actions of the Italian butterfly conservation status.

Balletto, Emilio et al.-- Trabajo presentado en el International Symposium Future 4 butterflies in Europe, Dutch Butterfly Conservation (De Vlinderstichting), celebrado en Wageningen del 31 de marzo al 2 de abril de 2016.

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