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 per
se.
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.)