You are here: News > News from the protected areas > Results of the Project «Mercantour/Alpi Marittime All taxa biodiversity inventory»

Results of the Project «Mercantour/Alpi Marittime All taxa biodiversity inventory»

Date :

31/05/2011

Keywords :

Biodiversity   Ecology   Fauna   Flora   France   Italy   Sciences

Due to its complex geological history, its geographic position and the alpine, Mediterranean and Ligurian climatic influences, the Mercantour/Marittime territory is characterized by an extremely high diversity in habitats, plant and animal species, and it is therefore considered as one of the 34 global biodiversity hotspots. For these reasons in 2006 the European Distributed Institute of Taxonomy (EDIT), thanks to the collaboration between Mercantour National Park and Maritime Alps Nature Park, established the first “All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory + Monitoring” (ATBI+M) approach in Europe, with the purpose of involving the scientific community in taxonomic and conservation issues and therefore to improve taxonomic knowledge in the preservation, use and management of biodiversity.

From 2007 to 2010 the Mercantour/Marittime ATBI+M project has involved more than 250 taxonomists from all over Europe; they collected over 50.000 datasets for a total of almost 8.300 species, many of which new for the area and at least 30 new for science! Almost two thirds of the reported species are animals, therefrom insects are the most represented group.
The photo gallery and the database can be consulted at the website of the project .
These results will now be integrated and improved by the Generalised Biological Inventory, a project of the interreg programme “Alcotra 2007-2013”.

Further information :

• Mercantour/Marittime ATBI+M (English)
• European Distributed Institute of Taxonomy (EDIT) (English)
• Program Interreg IIIA Alcotra 2007-2013 (French and Italian)

Go to the previous page

Link(s) :

• Parc national du Mercantour
• Parco Naturale Alpi Marittime