The BIOMA Institute participates in the largest assessment date on arthropod biodiversity in the Iberian Peninsula and the Balearic Islands.
A team of specialists from more than 15 institutions has identified the main biodiversity hotspots for Iberian arthropods.
23 | 02 | 2026
Arturo Ariño, Enrique Baquero, and David Galicia, researchers at Biodiversity and Environment Institute at the University of Navarra, have participated in a study published in the scientific journal Insect Conservation and Diversity. The research hundreds of thousands of data more than 6,000 species from 13 taxonomic groups in order to identify priority areas for conservation and assess the effectiveness of the network 2000 network .
Two of the best-represented groups in the study are springtails ( small soil organisms essential to the health of ecosystems) and spiders, which together account for about one-third of all species analyzed. In the case of springtails, data was collected data 936 species, while spiders constitute the group diverse group , with 1,617 species distributed throughout the peninsula.
The data was compiled and validated by researchers at the BIOMA Institute, while the information on spiders comes from Aralb (Iberiandatabase 2019) and has been processed by Eduardo Morano (Complutense University of Madrid), Pedro Cardoso (LIBRe, Finnish Museum of Natural History), Carlos Prieto (UPV), and Gabriel de Biurrun (group Arachnologygroup ).
Based on the richness patterns of each group, researchers identified 40 priority areas for Ibero-Balearic arthropods (PAIA). Although these areas represent only 0.6% of the territory, they are home to more than half of all the species studied. They are mainly concentrated in large mountain ranges: the Pyrenees, the Cantabrian Mountains, the Central System, and the Baetic System, with Sierra Nevada standing out as the only point where seven taxonomic groups coincide.
The study also analyzes the effectiveness of the network 2000network in protecting these areas of high biological value. The results indicate that, in general, the network a large part of the hotspots: around two-thirds of the PAIA area overlaps with protected areas, exceeding 90% in the most diverse areas. However, four priority areas remain outside the network, particularly around Madrid and Coimbra, and nine others show only partial protection.
The authors highlight that, despite arthropods representing seven out of every eight animal species on the planet, they continue to be largely overlooked in European environmental policies. The study underscores the need to explicitly integrate them into management 2000 management and post-2020 framework Biodiversity framework planning, as well as to strengthen data collection data less visible but ecologically essential groups.
The research carried out within the framework project (TED2021130328B100), funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by the European Union Next Generation EU/PRTR, and supported by projects Ref. PID2021-124187NBI00 and 3088153, funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation and the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the challenge —Next Generation EU and by the European Union Next Generation EU, respectively.
reference letter bibliography:
⦿ Sánchez-Fernández, D., Mañas-Jordá, S., García-Meseguer, A.J., Acosta, R., Ariño, A., Baquero, E. et al. (2026) Priority areas for arthropod conservation in the Iberian Peninsula and Balearic Islands: Insights from a multi-taxon distributional database. Insect Conservation and Diversity, 1–12. available : https://doi.org/10.1111/icad.70060