Apoidea del Friuli Venezia Giulia e di territori confinanti. III. Andrenidae

The species belonging to the Andrenidae (Hymenoptera, Apoidea) in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region (North-eastern Italy) and surrounding areas have been examined with the same criteria as the previous two papers. Not only individuals collected by authors in the period 1980-2012, but also materials located in museums, universities and private collections have been examined; moreover detailed bibliography research has been carried out. Collected data help to provide information about species’ distribution in the different geographical areas and, for many entities, on the visited flowering plants. In the studied area the occurrence of andrenid species belonging to the genera Andrena Fabricius, Melitturga Latreille, Camptopoeum Spinola and Panurgus Panzer has been noted. 107 species belonging to the genus Andrena have been reported on the basis of original specimens verified in the studied collections. Regarding the other genera, the number of species verified has been the following: Melitturga 1 species, Camptopoeum 1 species, Panurgus 3 species. 18 other andrenid species have been noted only based on bibliographical references. On the basis of the present work, the status of 20 taxa should be modified into the Checklist of Italian fauna (Pagliano 1995); in particular, A. aberrans Eversmann, 1852, A. clarkella (Kirby, 1802), A. curvana Warncke, 1965, A. florivaga Eversmann, 1852, A. gelriae Van der Vecht, 1927, A. montana Warncke, 1973, A. susterai Alfken, 1914 and A. thomsoni Ducke, 1898 must be listed as species present in Italy, while A. gravida Imhoff, 1832, A. polita Smith, 1847 and A. tenuistriata Pérez, 1895 must be reported also for Northern Italy. The species A. italiana Pittioni, 1950 has to be taken away from Checklist, since it is an invalid name. With regard to the 112 species whose presence has already been verified, about 47% of them have a wide European distribution, mostly in the Central Europe than in the Mediterranean area. About 46% of species instead show a wide Palaearctic distribution. Three species show an Holarctic distribution. Thus, Friuli Venezia Giulia region and surrounding areas are extremely important from a biogeographical point of view. Most of species are polylectic, but oligolectic species, associated with a single botanical family or a few genera, are also present: the latter seem to be endangered species owing to progressive disruption of natural environments and agroecosystems. Because many species are known only through ancient reports, it is desirable to plan studies on presence and pollinator activity of Andrenidae, and other families of Apoidea, to have updated information, essential to develop projects for the protection of biodiversity.