Dataset of occurrence and incidence of pine processionary moth in Andalusia (South Spain)

Andrea Ros Candeira1, Antonio Jesús Pérez-Luque1, María Suárez Muñoz1, Francisco Javier Bonet García2, José Antonio Hódar Correa3, José Manuel Moreira Madueño4

1 Laboratorio de Ecología (iEcolab), Instituto Interuniversitario de Investigación del Sistema Tierra en Andalucía (CEAMA), Universidad de Granada, Avenida del Mediterráneo s/n, 18006, Granada, Spain; 2 Laboratorio de Ecología (iEcolab), Instituto Interuniversitario de Investigación del Sistema Tierra en Andalucía (CEAMA), Universidad de Córdoba. Dpto. Botánica, Ecología y Fisiología Vegetal. Área de Ecología, Edificio Celestino Mutis (C-4), 1ª planta, 14014, Córdoba, Spain; 3 Grupo de Ecología Terrestre, Departamento de Ecología, Universidad de Granada, Facultad de Ciencias, Campus Fuentenueva s/n, 18071, Granada, Spain; 4 Consejería de Medio Ambiente y Ordenación del Territorio, Junta de Andalucía, Casa Sundheim, Avda. Manuel Siurot, 50, 41071, Sevilla, Spain

Corresponding author(s): Andrea Ros Candeira (andrearos@ugr.es)Antonio Jesús Pérez-Luque (ajperez@ugr.es)María Suárez Muñoz (msuamun@ugr.es)Francisco Javier Bonet García (fjbonet@uco.es)José Antonio Hódar Correa (jhodar@ugr.es)

Received {date}; Revised {date}; Accepted {date}; Published {date}

Citation: Combination of authors, year of data paper publication (in parentheses), Title, Journal Name, Volume, Issue number (in parentheses), and doi of the data paper.

Resource Citation

iEcolab, University of Granada-Andalusian Environmental Center (Andalusian Institute for Earth System Research) (2018) Dataset of occurrence and incidence of pine processionary moth in Andalusia (South Spain). v1.  Sierra Nevada Global Change Observatory. Andalusian Environmental Center, University of Granada, Regional Government of Andalusia. Contributed by Consejería de Medio Ambiente y Ordenación del Territorio. Dataset/Samplingevent. http://ipt.gbif.es/resource?r=coplas&amp;v=1.0 https://doi.org/10.15470/s1mxjb

Abstract

This dataset provides information about infestation caused by the pine processionary moth (Thaumetopoea pityocampa Schiffermüller, 1776) in pure or mixed pine plantations in Andalusia. It represents a long-term series (1993 - 2015) containing 81,908 records that describe the occurrence and incidence of this species. Data were collected by the Regional Ministry of Environment and Territorial Planning of the Andalusian Regional Government within the frame of the “Plan de Lucha Integrada contra la Procesionaria del Pino” (Plan for Integrated Control Against the Pine Processionary Moth), which includes a monitoring programme known as COPLAS. In particular, this dataset includes 4,386 monitoring stands which, together with the campaign year, define the dataset events in Darwin Core Archive. Events are related with occurrence data which show if the species is present or absent. In turn, the event data have a measurement associated: degree of infestation. 
The relevance of this dataset resides in the importance of long-term data, specially for management decisions in relation to forests phytosanitary status and ecological studies about population dynamics of this forest pest, as well as other research areas.

Keywords: Thaumetopoea pityocampa, forest pest, pine plantations, monitoring, degree of defoliation, Andalusia, Samplingevent

Project details

Project title: “Plan de Lucha Integrada contra la Procesionaria del Pino” (Plan for Integrated Control Against the Pine Processionary Moth)
Personnel: José Manuel Moreira Madueño
Study area descriptions/descriptor: The area of study is the great majority of Andalusian pure or mixed pine forests (Junta de Andalucía, 2013). As noted above, as a result of intense reforestations in past decades the pine forest presence in Andalusia is extensive. The most common species are: Pinus pinea, P. pinaster, P. halepensis, P. sylvestris and P. nigra  (Junta de Andalucía, 2010).
Design description: The Plan for Integrated Control Against the Pine Processionary Moth was designed according to national and regional regulatory frameworks regarding forest management and use of phytosanitary products. Likewise, the Plan was based on concepts defined internationally and defined by the scientific community as “integrated control”. Local studies about the pine processionary moth were carried out in a few centers known as Biological Observation Centers. Together with the available scientific knowledge, the results of these studies were used to define the monitoring design and data collection. For the purpose of this Plan, a system to store and manage the generated information was necessary. For this reason, a survey system was designed where information is collected in a form for each stand and visit.
The Plan design was made from a mainly preventive point of view, with the aim of controlling the population of the pest, but contemplating its dynamic character, incorporating large surfaces and new techniques over time. An important step after assessing the level of damage consists on issuing a proposal for actions or treatments and execute those control measures.

Data published through GBIF: https://ipt.gbif.es/resource?r=coplas

Taxonomic coverage

General taxonomic coverage description: The whole dataset includes 81,908 records that describe the occurrence of a single species: Thaumetopoea pityocampa Schiffermüller, 1776.
The pine processionary moth Thaumetopoea pityocampa is one of the species that causes the most extensive impact to the Andalusian forests. Its typical distribution area, conditioned by climate, is associated with Mediterranean and Circum-Mediterranean regions (Battisti et al. 2015), mainly feeding on Pinus genus. That is explained to a big extent by minimum winter temperatures as larval stage takes place in winter (Buffo et al. 2007; Demolin, 1969; Hoch et al. 2009). Therefore, increasing winter temperatures favour this species and climate change is thus expected to increase the potential distribution of the species, which become a paradigmatic case study on the response of forest pests to climatic change (Netherer & Schopf, 2010). Indeed, reports already show presence, outbreaks and potential shifts of the species at higher altitudes and latitudes than before (Battisti, 2005; Pimentel et al. 2011). As a consequence of this, some research shows Thaumetopoea pityocampa as a threat to endemic pine forests (Hódar et al. 2003).
Taxonomic ranks
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Family: Notodontidae
Genus: Thaumetopoea
Species: Thaumetopoea pityocampa Schiffermüller, 1776
Common names: pine processionary moth

Spatial coverage

General spatial coverage: Andalusia is located in Southern Spain and covers around 87,597 km². This is a region characterized by great climate variability. Though the majority of the surface is classified as Mediterranean climate type (Csa, according to Köppen’s classification) (AEMET, 2011), there are other bioclimatic zones: subtropical (Mediterranean coast), oceanic (Atlantic coast), mountain (medium and high mountain areas in mountain ranges which reach 2000 m.a.s.l.), subcontinental (Guadalquivir Valley and part of oriental Andalusia) and subdesert (Southeast zone with coastal influence) (Junta de Andalucía, 2014). The altitude ranges from sea level to Sierra Nevada summits, where the highest peak reaches 3481 m.a.s.l.
In reference to the forest area, it currently covers around 44,000 km² which entails just over half of the total region. The evolution through time has been as follows: in 1956 the forest extension meant 54.7% of the total territory; in 1989 it covered 53.1%; for 2003 it represented 52.6% of the total area of Andalusia (Junta de Andalucía, 2010), while for 2007 it covered 4,455,681 ha (Gutiérrez-Hernández et al. 2016), which entails around 50.9%. Even though these percentages show that forest area has descended, it is true that wooded lands have increased, specifically coniferous formations, which encompass pine forests (Junta de Andalucía, 2010). These formations have increased intensely during the second half of the 20th century because of past reforestation projects (Gutiérrez-Hernández et al. 2016), mainly due to commercial value and general economic interest underlying the National Afforestation Plan of the 40s (Junta de Andalucía, 2011) or, on occasion, because of the willing to control the soil erosion. Afterwards, the presence of some pine species was promoted due to afforestation programs from European policies (Anaya-Romero et al. 2016). Expressed in figures, coniferous formations represented 7.8% of the forest area of Andalusia in the year 1956, in 1989 it covered 16.4% while in 2003 it decreased to 10.5% (Junta de Andalucía, 2010). This means that a high percentage of the pine woodlands in Andalusia are plantations or originally came from plantations. According to the Andalusian Forestry Plan of the year 1989, only 20% (151,900 ha) of the total pine woodlands (759,700 ha) were considered natural as a result of spontaneous repopulations from reforestations at the beginning of the century (Junta de Andalucía, 1989). The remaining 80% came from artificial reforestations.
In this scenario, Thaumetopoea pityocampa has found a large surface for its activity producing an impact on forests because of defoliation. In the current context of climate change, information about forest pests gains importance because they can play a fundamental role affecting physiology of forest ecosystems (Gracia, 2005).
Coordinates: 36°2'27.6''N and 38°37'4.8''N Latitude; 7°26'9.6''W and 1°52'30''W Longitude 

Formation period: 1993 - 2015

Methods

Method step description: All data were stored in a normalized database (PostgreSQL) and incorporated into the Information System of Sierra Nevada Global-Change Observatory (Pérez-Pérez et al. 2012). Taxonomic and spatial validations were made on this database (see Quality control description). A custom-made SQL view of the database was performed to gather occurrence data associated to sampling event and other variables associated with occurrence data, specifically, degree of infestation.
The sampling event data, occurrence and measurement data were accommodated to fulfill the Darwin Core Standard (Wieczorek et al. 2009; 2012). We used Darwin Core Archive Validator tool (http://tools.gbif.org/dwca-validator/) to check whether the dataset meets Darwin Core specifications. The Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT v2.0.5) (Robertson et al. 2014) of the Spanish node of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) (http://ipt.gbif.es) was used both to upload the Darwin Core Archive and to fill out the metadata. 
The Darwin Core elements for the sampling event data included in the dataset are: eventID, modified, language, institutionCode, collectionCode, continent, country, countryCode, stateProvince, county, eventDate, habitat, minimumElevationInMeters, maximumElevationInMeters, decimalLatitude, decimalLongitude, geodeticDatum, coordinateUncertaintyInMeters, samplingProtocol, sampleSizeValue, sampleSizeUnit, footprintWKT. For the occurrence data are: occurrenceID, catalogNumber, eventID, eventDate, basisOfRecord, scientificName, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, specificEpithet, scientificNameAuthorship, associatedTaxa, recordedBy, occurrenceStatus. For the measurement data, the Darwin Core elements included were: measurementID, eventID, measurementType, measurementValue, measurementUnit, measurementDeterminedBy, measurementDeterminedDate, measurementMethod.
Study extent description: Every year, the Plan for Integrated Control Against the Pine Processionary Moth increased the area covered by the monitoring stands (Junta de Andalucía, 2010), which are distributed throughout all the provinces of Andalusia. In particular, the surface area covered by the monitoring stands included in this dataset is 7,717.6 km².
Sampling description: The monitoring programme COPLAS was developed for assessing annual defoliation caused by this species on pines and counting of nests through human observation. For this programme, pine forests were divided into monitoring stands according to administrative and environmental criteria defined in the Plan for Integrated Control. Every year, these stands were visited by a forest officer at the end of the defoliating season (from end of winter to beginning of spring) who assigned a defoliation degree to the plot based on observation of the stand as a whole. 
The result was a scale ranging from 0 to 5 which represents the degree of infestation by the pine processionary moth:
- Degree 0: None or some very scattered nests are observed through the stand.
- Degree 1: Some nests are observed at the stand edges, in clear areas as well as isolated trees.
- Degree 2: Numerous nests at the edges of the stand, in clear areas and some in the middle of the stand.
- Degree 3: Partial defoliation at the stand edges and isolated trees. Abundant nests in the middle of the stand.
- Degree 4: Very strong defoliations at the stand edges as well as isolated trees and partial defoliations in the rest of the stand.
- Degree 5: Very strong defoliations throughout the stand.
Since this defoliation assessment was used to define further management measures, this initial assessment could be checked and further adjusted by a technician when plots were assigned a degree equal or higher than 3.
Quality control description: The scientific names were checked with databases of Catalogue of Life/Species 2000 (Roskov et al., 2018). We also performed validation procedures (Chapman, 2005a; 2005b) (geographic coordinate format, coordinates within provincial/county boundaries, absence of ASCII anomalous characters in the dataset) with Darwin Test (3.3) software (Pando, Lujano & Cezón, 2017).

Datasets

Dataset description
Object name: Darwin Core Archive Dataset of occurrence and incidence of pine processionary moth in Andalusia (South Spain)
Character encoding: UTF-8
Format name: Darwin Core Archive format
Format version: 1.0
Distribution: https://ipt.gbif.es/archive.do?r=coplas
Publication date of data: 2018-11-30
Language: English
Licences of use: Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 License

Metadata language: English
Date of metadata creation: 2018-03-10
Hierarchy level: Dataset

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