Cicadetta brevipennis Fieber,1876

Hertach, Thomas & Nagel, Peter, 2013, Cicadas in Switzerland: ascientific overview of the historic and current knowledge of apopular taxon (Hemiptera: Cicadidae), Revue suisse de Zoologie 120 (2), pp. 229-269 : 254-256

Cicadetta brevipennis Fieber,1876 (sensu Gogala &Trilar,2004)

German common name: Gras-Bergzikade

French common name: La Cigalette àailes courtes ( Puissant, 2006)

The common German name is derived from an unusual behaviour within Central European cicadas: Cicadetta brevipennis is regularly singing in the herb layer (“Gras” =grass).

DISTRIBUTION (Fig. 11)

Historic records of this forth member of the C. montana species complex can not be reported. It is the rarest species within the complex in Switzerland, but the most frequent in the Mediterranean parts of France ( Puissant, 2006) and in some parts of Slovenia (Gogala, pers. comm.).

The distribution area reaches Switzerland in the Geneva region and southern Ticino. Not more than two populations and an isolated calling male are known from Ticino, but the population on Monte San Giorgio is very numerous with more than 100 calling males. The Ticino populations are not well interconnected with Italian ones. C. brevipennis has its most important Swiss populations along slopes of the river Rhone in the Canton of Geneva. Furthermore, an isolated population was discovered in the Orbe region in 2011. The Alsace populations ( Hugel et al., 2008 and pers. data) do not reach the Swiss border from the north .

ECOLOGY AND THREAT

C. brevipennis resembles C.sp. aff. cerdaniensis in habitat selection in Ticino and it can occur syntopically with the latter.The composition of the woody plants is

FIG.10 Distribution map of Cicadetta sp. aff. cerdaniensis including solely acoustically checked records. FIG.11 Distribution map of Cicadetta brevipennis including solely acoustically checked records.

similar, but C. brevipennis prefers more open ecotone habitats with a tendency to semidry meadows. In the Canton of Geneva, C. brevipennis more or less replaces C. cantilatrix in sparse Scots Pine forests (Pinus sylvestris)and ecotone habitats with aslight preference for drier soils. For more ecological data see Hertach (2007).

The species is stenoecious and endangered by the abandonment of traditional land use and by grazing or intensification of semidry or dry meadows, especially in Ticino and at the location near Orbe. The national conservation importance of this species for Switzerland is less relevant given its wider distribution in other countries. Nevertheless, Swiss populations do not seem to be connected with large populations, at least not in Italy,and their genotypes may therefore differ from the core distribution of the species.