In the period 1997-1998, the Flemish Forest Service funded a study (B&G/29/98) that initiated a region-wide soil fauna survey by a consortium of three Universities (RuG, KuL and UA; now University of Ghent, KU Leuven and University of Antwerp) and two Research Institutes (IBW and RBINS; now INBO and RBINS). The survey was conducted on 56 well selected forest plots representative for all forest- and soil types in Flanders Region.
The goals of the study were (1) to assess the diversity of soil dwelling organisms (soil fauna) across Flanders’ forests; (2) to look for bioindicators for forest soil quality and (3) to explore if a biological forest soil classification system based on soil fauna composition could be designed. Recognizing the critical role of soil organisms in ecosystem functioning (e.g. nutrient cycling), the study sought to establish a link between soil biodiversity and soil condition. Here we publish the Empididae and Hybotidae data sampled in this initial project, as a T0. Over time, other organism groups and soil bioindicators were assessed on the same FSFN plots by various studies. However, 25 years later, all plots are getting resurveyed by the studies ‘FOURCAST’ and ‘Biota4C’ following the same sampling schemes and methodologies as in the initial project. Therefore we wish to publish all initial datasets in order to compare them with the recent findings. All published data can be retrieved using collectionCode ‘FSFN’.
Issues with the dataset can be reported at https://github.com/inbo/data-publication-fsfn/issues
We have released this dataset to the public domain under a Creative Commons Zero waiver. We would appreciate it if you follow the INBO norms for data use (https://www.inbo.be/en/norms-data-use) when using the data. If you have any questions regarding this dataset, don't hesitate to contact us via the contact information provided in the metadata or via opendata@inbo.be.
For all published datasets regarding this Forest Soil Fauna Network (FSFN), see https://www.gbif.org/dataset/search?project_id=BNG/15/96 or https://www.gbif.org/occurrence/search?collection_code=FSFN
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Bruyn, L., De Bakker, D., Desender, K., Engelen, B., Mihaly, F., Grootaert, P., Jacobs, W., Janssens, F., Maelfait, J.-P., Thys, S., Verlinden, L. (1999). Bosbodemklassificatie door middel van bodemfauna (Onderzoeksopdracht B&G/15/96). Ministerie van de Vlaamse Gemeenschap, Brussel.","citationProvidedBySource":false},{"text":"Pollet, M. & Grootaert, P. (1996). An estimation of the natural value of dune habitats using Empidoidea (Diptera). Biodiversity and Conservation, 5: 859-880.","citationProvidedBySource":false}],"curatorialUnits":[],"taxonomicCoverages":[{"description":"A total of 102839 individuals were identified. They belonged to 111 taxa, including at least 110 different species, flies, initially classified as Empididae (Dagger flies), of which some species are meanwhile classified as Hybotidae (Dance flies) or Dolichopodidae (Long-legged flies).","coverages":[{"scientificName":"Animalia","rank":{"verbatim":"kingdom","interpreted":"KINGDOM"}},{"scientificName":"Diptera","rank":{"verbatim":"order","interpreted":"ORDER"}},{"scientificName":"Empididae","rank":{"verbatim":"family","interpreted":"FAMILY"}},{"scientificName":"Hybotidae","rank":{"verbatim":"family","interpreted":"FAMILY"}}]}],"geographicCoverages":[{"description":"Flanders, Belgium","boundingBox":{"minLatitude":50.68,"maxLatitude":51.51,"minLongitude":2.54,"maxLongitude":5.92,"globalCoverage":false}}],"temporalCoverages":[{"@type":"range","start":"1997-05-01T00:00:00.000+00:00","end":"1997-05-30T00:00:00.000+00:00"}],"keywordCollections":[{"thesaurus":"GBIF Dataset Type Vocabulary: http://rs.gbif.org/vocabulary/gbif/dataset_type_2015-07-10.xml","keywords":["Samplingevent"]},{"thesaurus":"n/a","keywords":["soil; fauna; indicator"]}],"project":{"title":"Forest soil bio-indication research in Flanders, Belgium","identifier":"BNG/15/96","contacts":[{"type":"POINT_OF_CONTACT","primary":false,"userId":["https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9523-3453"],"firstName":"Bruno","lastName":"De Vos","position":[],"email":[],"phone":[],"homepage":[],"address":[]}],"funding":"Flemish Government (project Aminal B&G/15/96 in Flemish forests)","awards":[],"studyAreaDescription":"Flanders, Belgium","relatedProjects":[],"abstract":"The project aimed to develop bioindicators and a biological classification system for forest soils based on soil fauna composition in Flanders region. Recognizing the critical role of soil organisms in ecosystem functioning, the study sought to establish a link between soil biodiversity and soil condition."},"samplingDescription":{"studyExtent":"Across Flanders’ forests, the diversity of soil dwelling Empididae and Hybotidae can facilitate indicating forest soil quality.","sampling":"For the investigation of Empididae and Hybotidae, soil (pitfall and coloured pan) traps were utilized.","qualityControl":"Data were collected using a predefined sampling protocol.","methodSteps":["Researchers defined the appropriate sampling protocol for the target species.","Fieldwork was planned and coordinated by the University of Antwerp (previously named RUCA), using the designed sampling protocol.","Researchers entered the collected data in a digital way (old spreadsheets).","A custom R script is created to transform the plot data and map the original data to Darwin Core as an event core and occurrence extension.","The Darwin Core views are connected to the INBO IPT and documented with metadata.","The dataset is published and registered with GBIF."]},"countryCoverage":[],"collections":[],"dataDescriptions":[],"dataLanguage":"eng","pubDate":"2025-12-11T00:00:00.000+00:00","maintenanceUpdateFrequency":"NOT_PLANNED","maintenanceDescription":"","license":"http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode","dwca":{"coreType":"http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/Event","extensions":["http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/Occurrence"],"modified":"2026-10-12T03:55:43.853+00:00"},"approximateCounts":{"occurrenceCount":5712}}