Our Planet Reviewed in Corsica 2019-2021: a large-scale survey of neglected biodiversity on a Mediterranean island

Abstract

From 2019 to 2021, scientific field campaigns have been organised in Corsica by the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, the Office français de la biodiversité and the Collectivité de Corse as part of the “Our Planet Reviewed” naturalist exploration programme. This paper presents the context, the state of biogeographical and taxonomic knowledge prior to our expeditions, and the objectives, the methods and the first results obtained. The aim was to establish a modern survey of the species present in a selection of sites representative of different Corsican ecosystems, and to further develop the natural history collections through depositing new specimens and species with associated standard DNA barcodes, useful for their identification. Over a period of three years, nineteen sites were surveyed with a semi-standardised protocol and a large-scale trapping scheme was organised in three of these. Sampling efforts focused on forest habitats at higher altitudes and on coastal dune and lowland marshland habitats. A vast array of methods was used to collect invertebrates, with a specific effort on flightinterception traps and pan traps. A total of 34 experts participated to the field surveys and more than 80 further contributed to the study of the specimens. Occurrence data are available in the Inventaire national du patrimoine naturel (http://www.inpn.fr) and, for specimens processed through DNA barcoding, specimen and DNA sequencing data will be accessible in the Barcode of Life datasystems (BOLD : http://www.boldsystems.org). In early 2023, the assembled datasets included 31,100 occurrence data for 3,900 taxa of terrestrial arthropods, representing a 53% increase in publicly available data for the island. More than 6,800 DNA barcode sequences have been produced for arthropods, representing a 14-fold increase in available sequences of Corsican insects compared to those available before the start of the programme. So far, these efforts resulted in producing the first Corsican records for 148 species and in the description of 12 species new to science.