Number of species in the dominant or relatively wellstudied

Arctic Biodiversity Assessment (ABA) 2013.

Table 7.3. Number of species in the dominant or relatively wellstudied groups of invertebrates in the major biogeographical regions of the low and high Arctic. Greenland, in addition to being included within the traditional Nearctic region, is also considered as a separate unit as its fauna cannot be considered as being solely derived from the Nearctic region. Data are partly compiled from Babenko & Fjellberg (2006), Chernov & Makarova (2008), Chernov & Tatarinov (2006)1 and Stekolshchikov & Buga (2009)2, but mainly from original data assembled by the contributing authors. Data on butterflies and Anostraca (shrimps, etc.) are for the whole of the Arctic region including the sub-Arctic zone and may, in the case of the butterfl ies, include some migrant species – about 40% of the 106 species of butterfl ies numbered are typically Arctic. For the midge family Chironomidae the fi rst number in each cell is an estimate of the total number of species present, the fi gure in parentheses is the total number of species known to occur north of the Arctic Circle, many of which are likely to be found in the low Arctic. Within this highly diverse group a revised and updated species list is only currently available for the subfamilies Podonominae, Tanypodinae, Diamesinae, Prodiamesinae and Telmatogetoninae within the Arctic (see Ashe & O’Connor 2009). The ratio of Arctic to total Holarctic species in these taxa has been extrapolated to arrive at a revised estimate of the number of species in the remaining subfamilies. For the aphids, the Nearctic data are reliably compiled from published accounts, whereas the data given for the Total Arctic (inluding the sub-Arctic and thus placed in parenthesis) are taken from Stekolshchikov & Buga (2009), but the original source is not known. A major omission is the parasitoid Hymenoptera wasps (predominantly Ichneumonoidea), which are relatively diverse but for which up to date data in the required format are not easily accessible. Tab. 7.2 should be consulted for older data on their biodiversity in the Nearctic region.

Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF)

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Meltofte, H. (ed.) 2013. Arctic Biodiversity Assessment. Status and trends in Arctic biodiversity. Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna, Akureyri.