Sawflies (Hymenoptera: Symphyta) from North-Western Georgia (Sakartvelo)

In total, 388 specimens belonging to 61 species of sawflies were collected in North-Western Georgia in 2020. Among the collected species, 29 are new country records


Introduction
The date of reporting the first sawfly (Hymenoptera) species from the Republic of Georgia is uncertain. The authors of the nineteenth century frequently provided highly ambiguous locality data (e.g. "Patria Caucasus" or "Transcaucasia" or "Rossia: Caucasus"), making it impossible to determine whether the species was described from the Caucasian part of Russia, Georgia, or other Caucasian countries in general (Eversmann 1847;Mocsáry 1880Mocsáry , 1883Konow 1899Konow , 1902. The first checklist of Caucasian insects was published by Radde (1899) providing a list of around 80 species sawflies. Later on, the keys for sawflies and horntails (Symphyta) were compiled by Andguladze (1957) for Georgia and by Dadurian (1962) for Armenia. Due to the work of Dadurian (1962) and Andghuladze (1973) the number of sawflies occurring in Georgia has increased by 105 species. After a large gap of research, the last work was published very recently by Japoshvili and Haris (2022) reporting the 65 symphitans from Kintrishin National Park, of which 42 species were new country records. Thus, prior to our research, Georgia had 147 species of sawflies reported.
In the present contribution, we are reporting the results of a recent faunistic investigation of sawflies that resulted in a significant increase in species diversity in Georgia.

Materials and methods
Between June and August of 2020, malaise traps were installed in six localities in north-western Georgia (Fig. 1), which encompasses the two administrative units of Tkibuli and Tsageri districts. The Tkibuli district is located in the Okriba basin, on average, 600-800 m above sea level, alongside the river Tkibula. The maximum height is 1569 m (Jinjikhadze, Chkheidze 2018). The Cretaceous limestone of the Tsageri district is characterized by sharp erosive and karst forms and landslides for caves. There are also Paleogene and Neogene sediments, sandstones, clays, and conglomerates. The highest point is Mount Tsekuri at 3188 meters above sea level (Chichinadze 2022). The administrative centres of both districts are around 40 km away from each other. In both districts, the vegetation types are much the same. In particular, the main forest-forming trees are beech, horn-beam, chestnut, oak, maple, ash, and conifers (spruce, fir). The natural vegetation has been strongly transformed by human influence. There are many deciduous and evergreen shrubs in the forest understory. Elements of xerophytic vegetation are found on the southern-facing limestone slopes, while alder is a common element on the moist river banks (Nakhutsrishvili et al. 2015). The traps were operated from June to August of 2020. The sampling strategy was not designed to obtain quantitative data (for example, traps were not installed during the most active periods for sawflies due to logistic reasons, and also traps were operated for varying lengths of time), but rather to get a snapshot knowledge of the diversity of sawflies of the region.
For identification and for host-plant data, Zhelochovtsev's work on the sawflies of the European part of the former USSR (Zhelochovtsev 1988), the handbook of Lacourt on the identification of the European sawflies (Lacourt 2020), the monograph of Robert Benson on the Turkish sawfly fauna (Benson 1968), and Gussakovskij's monographs on the sawflies of the former USSR (Gussakovskij 1935(Gussakovskij , 1947 were used. We also consulted recent revisions (Gyurkovics and Haris 2014;Haris 2006;Koch 1988;Prous et.al. 2017;2021) to confirm the identifications of particular taxa and Georgian Biodiversity Database (GBD) (Tarkhnishvili and Chaladze, 2013) for the distribution of species in Georgia. The general distribution of species are reported based on Roller and Haris (2008), Taeger et al. (2006), Sundukov (2017. Further, reference material was studied in the Budapest collection in the Hungarian Natural History Museum. The nomenclature used in this paper follows the latest monograph of European sawflies (Lacourt 2020) with special concern for the subfamily Nematinae to address the conclusions of Prous et al. (2014). The higher classification of sawflies applied in this work follows the Hymenoptera part of Fauna Europaea (Achterberg 2013). Host plant records are given according to Macek et al. (2020). New records for Georgia are marked with an asterisk (*).  Andguladze (1957;1973). Palaearctic.    (Konow, 1904) ■ GEORGIA • 2 ♀♀; Tsageri, Doghurashi village, Katsunara; N42.667145, E42.770836; 550 m a.s.l., 5-12/VI/2020. • Previously reported by Japoshvili and Haris (2022

Conclussions
Prior to our study, 147 species of sawflies had been reported from Georgia (Japoshvili and Haris 2022). During this study, 29 new species for Georgia were reported, and thus the number of sawflies found in Georgia increased to 183. Given the rather scarce and sporadic investigation of sawflies in Georgia, the species number is expected to be significantly higher. Furthermore, we collected 61 species in north-west Georgia, which indicates that this area supports a much higher diversity of sawflies compared to south-west Georgia. Indeed, extensive, whole-year malaise trap sampling of sawflies in Kintrishi Protected areas revealed 65 species only (Japoshvili and Haris, 2022).
The density of sawflies and their species richness were measured at five different altitudes (from 550 to 1800 meters above sea level). The highest diversity and density, with 40% (155) of individuals belonging to 39 species, were collected at 1070 m. The number of individuals and raw species richness decrease at lower (550 m -16 ind/9sp, 780 m -121ind/28sp) and higher altitudes (1470 m -74in/15sp, 1800 m -22in/7sp). However, this kind of inference is not statistically valid as the sampling intensity was also higher at the elevations with higher individual/species density. In addition, the sampling period was behind the activity peaks (April and May) of sawflies. Accordingly, obtained numbers of individuals or species density cannot be considered as comprehensive quantitative biodiversity data.