| Summary: | Saltmarshes are widely distributed around the globe, with specialized communities of flora and fauna. These ecotones typically exhibit a spatial zonation of their vegetation from its mudflats to the seawall or dunes, providing different habitats to specific invertebrate assemblages adapted to regular submergence by seawater, and the resulting high soil salinity. Worldwide these ecotones have been declining at a rapid pace in the last few decades. This is a serious problem since these ecosystems are some of the most productive in the world and provide important ecosystem services, such as coastal protection, erosion control, water purification, carbon sequestration, raw materials and food and contribute to recreational activities. Also, they are essential to support coastal food webs, providing nursery areas for fish, crustaceans, and birds. Ria de Aveiro is the largest contiguous salt marsh area in Portugal and one of the largest in Europe. It is currently a Long-Term Socio-Ecological Research site (LTsER), and it is classified under the Natura 2000 network, encompassing a Special Protection Area (SPA). Despite being considered a living lab and being the target of many studies there is little information on insect species that occur here. This is a major knowledge gap since this taxon provides several important ecosystem services. In this work, we aimed to characterize Ria de Aveiro saltmarsh insect communities in this ecotone. To achieve this goal, insects were collected by sweep-netting the dominating halophyte vegetation in September 2020, in seven locations of Ria de Aveiro saltmarshes areas and later identified to the maximum possible level of taxonomic resolution. In each site, soil samples were collected to access physicochemical soil parameters of each site (salinity, conductivity, pH, and organic matter). A total of 2816 individuals belonging to 11 orders and 80 families were identified. The most abundant orders were the Diptera and Hemiptera. In this work, 17 new species were identified for Portugal (1 belonging to Hemiptera and 16 to Diptera order). Despite these efforts, the species accumulation curves indicate that not all species were collected in all seven sites indicating that further studies are necessary to fully understand insect communities of Ria de Aveiro saltmarshes.
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