A first comprehensive account on the dolichopodid fauna (Diptera: Dolichopodidae) of Portugal is presented here as the result of multiple surveys by primarily Portuguese researchers between 2009 and 2016. All mainland Portuguese provinces and all districts but one (Évora) were investigated. A total of 761 dolichopodid samples were collected in 278 sampling sites distributed over 87 municipalities and 182 localities, with nearly ¾ of the samples gathered by sweepnet. In terms of generic representation, the Portuguese dolichopodid fauna occupies an intermediate position between those of northwestern European and other Mediterranean countries. Despite the large amount of data gathered, the dolichopodid fauna of Portugal remains insufficiently known and a considerable number of additional known and new species can be expected with continued sampling. A more exhaustive description of the dataset and the results of the surveys can be found in Pollet et al. (2019). We have released this dataset to the public domain under a CC-BY licence. We would appreciate it if you follow the GBIF citation guidelines (https://www.gbif.org/citation-guidelines). If you have any questions regarding this dataset, don't hesitate to contact us via the contact information provided in the metadata.

The Belgian Coccinellidae dataset which is published, is the result of a merge of 4 datasets. The INBO (Research Institute for Nature and Forest; Flemish Region Database), the DFF database (The Walloon Region Database), Observations.be data provided by Natagora (The Walloon Region and Brussels Capital Region) and the Walloon Region Online Encoding Tool (DEMNA - OFFH, observatoire.biodiversite.wallonie.be/encodage) data. At present, the database contains about 80.000 records, of which 15% come from museum collections and literature data. Collection events minimally consist of species, number of individuals, stage (adults, larvae and pupae), observation date, observer and location. Original locations as well as collection material were attributed to 1x1 km or 5x5 km grid cells of the UTM grid (Universal Transverse Mercator). A large part of the Belgian territory has been surveyed for ladybird beetles: the database contains records for at least 85% of all 5x5km UTM grid cells (N = 1376) in Belgium. Additionally, data on substratum plants, height in the vegetation, sampling method, habitat type, surrounding landscape, slope orientation, soil type, humidity, vegetation cover and behaviour were noted. In 1999, the Belgian Ladybird Working Group Coccinula launched a large scale field survey on 40 native ladybird species (Coccinellinae, Chilocorinae and Epilachninae) and to date has more than 500 volunteers providing distribution data. They actively search for ladybird beetles in a variety of habitats using sweep nets, beating trays, visual search, light trapping, pitfall traps and other sampling methods. Distribution, habitat and substrate plant information is also noted on a standard recording form. The working group maintains a database of observations, literature and collection data of Coccinellidae from 1800 onwards. Preliminary atlases have been published for the whole Belgian territory (Branquart et al., 1999; Adriaens and Maes, 2004) and updated distribution maps are available online, on demand and through the working group's newsletter. The published dataset contains most of the data maintained by the working group. For the time being, only the original INBO database is published.

The dataset aggregates the results from a pan-European multi-site experiment, financially supported by the ALTER-Net consortium, Europe’s Ecosystem Research Network. In this multi-site experiment, the impact of dung beetle assemblages on dung decomposition and secondary seed dispersal was studied. Working at a multi-site level allowed us to study the link between ecosystem functions of dung removal and secondary seed dispersal, and dung beetle diversity and abundance in a broad range of bioclimatic zones. Therefore, grazed grasslands throughout the Western Palaearctic zone were included in the experiment. By experimentally manipulating the access of certain dung beetle functional groups to the experimental units, we were able to estimate the value of each functional group for ecosystem functioning and assess the impact of predicted climate change on these processes through the changes it induces in dung beetle assemblage composition. During the experiments, the removal of different types of dung and seeds were measured and the dung beetle assemblage composition was determined using different types of dung as bait. The experiments took place between 2013 and 2016, at 17 study sites in 10 countries within the Western Palaearctic realm. The dung beetle occurrence data set contains all dung beetle specimens sampled during the 4-week experimental periods at each sampling site. To allow anyone to use this dataset, we have released the data to the public domain under a Creative Commons Zero waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). We would appreciate however, if you read and follow these norms for data use (http://www.inbo.be/en/norms-for-data-use) and provide a link to the original dataset (https://doi.org/10.15468/zbazdy) whenever possible. If you use these data for a scientific paper, please cite the dataset following the applicable citation norms and/or consider us for co-authorship. We are always interested to know how you have used or visualized the data, or to provide more information, so please contact us via the contact information provided in the metadata, opendata@inbo.be or https://twitter.com/LifeWatchINBO.