Staphylinidae of Eastern Canada and adjacent United States. Key to subfamilies; Staphylininae: tribes and subtribe, and species of Staphylinina
Citation
Brunke, A., Newton, A., Klimaszewski, J., Majka, C. and Marshall, S. 2011. Staphylinidae of Eastern Canada and Adjacent United States. Key to Subfamilies; Staphylininae: Tribes and Subtribes, and Species of Staphylinina. Canadian Journal of Arthropod Identification No. 12, 20 January 2011, available online at doi: 10.3752/cjai.2011.12.
Plain language summary
Rove beetles (Staphylinidae) are the largest family of living organisms, with more than 62,000 species worldwide and more than 1800 in Canada performing various ecosystem services to agriculture and forestry. Confidently assigning a name to a species is critical to informed decision-making, yet rove beetles are the most poorly known group of beetles in Canada, with an estimated 20% undescribed; up-to-date identification resources or authoritative literature are unavailable for most species. To address this, an international team of authors from AAFC, NRCan, University of Guelph, Field Museum of Natural History (United States) and the Nova Scotia Museum developed a richly illustrated, online tool for morphological identification. This resource covers all twenty-two rove beetle subfamilies in eastern Canada and the adjacent United States. For the same region, the major groups of subfamily Staphylininae, and all species of the subtribe Staphylinina are also treated. Species limits of the difficult Platydracus cinnamopterus complex are revised and one new species was discovered and described. The authors also report one new Canadian record, one new record from eastern Canada and thirty-nine new provincial or state records.
Abstract
Rove beetles (Staphylinidae) are diverse and dominant in many of North America’s ecosystems but, despite this and even though some subfamilies are nearly completely revised, most species remain difficult for non-specialists to identify. The relatively recent recognition that staphylinid assemblages in North America can provide useful indicators of natural and human impact on biodiversity has highlighted the need for accessible and effective identification tools for this large family. In the first of what we hope to be a series of publications on the staphylinid fauna of eastern Canada and the adjacent United States (ECAS), we here provide a key to the twenty-two subfamilies known from the region, a tribe/subtribe level key for the subfamily Staphylininae, and a species key to the twenty-five species of the subtribe Staphylinina. Within the Staphylinina, the Platydracus cinnamopterus species complex is defined to include P. praetermissus Newton spec. nov., P. cinnamopterus (Gravenhorst) and P. zonatus (Gravenhorst). Lectotypes are designated for Staphylinus cinnamopterus Gravenhorst, Staphylinus zonatus Gravenhorst and Staphylinus badius Mannerheim. One new Canadian record, one new record from eastern Canada, and thirty-nine new provincial or state records are presented