Diptera diversity in fifteen urban green spaces of a southern temperate city

We collected the data for a project with the broad objective of studying urbanization effects on arthropod communities. Dipterans were collected from vegetation with a G-VAC (aspirator) in 15 urban green patches in Córdoba city, Argentina, during the summer (February) and winter (July-August) of 2014, diurnally within 9 am - 5 pm. A Sthil® vacuum cleaner with a 110 cm long and 12 cm wide tube was used to suck during 1 minute the vegetation within a square meter area (one subsample). Ten subsamples (5 at ground level and 5 up to 200 cm above the ground) were collected and pooled per site and sampling season. The pooled material collected from one site and season was considered as one sample unit (site) for data analysis. Samples were always collected on vegetation patches, which may include relatively small patches of bare ground, but not from bare ground <i>per se</i>. The minimum spatial distance between two subsamples was approximately 10 m. All adult Diptera were counted and identified to family based on morphological characteristics, mainly using taxonomic keys in McAlpine et al. (1981). (McAlpine J, Peterson B, Shewell G, Teskey H, Vockeroth J, Wood D (1981) Manual of Nearctic Diptera Vol I. Minister of Supply and Services Canada. Ottawa, Canada.)