The Continental Arthropod Collection is a Center of Biological Resources hosted in the research center : CBGP - Centre de Biologie pour la Gestion des Populations, in Montferrier-sur-Lez (F-34980).
This arthropod collection has been the support of various collaborative national and international research programmes. Parts of its diversity can be accessed via a number of websites, among which Arthemis DB@se, PhylAphid DB@se
Insects
The collection comprises series of specimens gathered from all over the world during the last 50 years by research teams from INRA, IRD, Cirad and Montpellier SupAgro. It also includes various private collections that were bought by / given to some of these institutions; the oldest date of the end of the 19th century. More than one million of specimens preserved dry or in fluid (ethanol) and more that 10.000 DNA extracts constitute this collection to date (Jan. 2017).
This collection is of huge scientific and heritage value. It includes numerous reference specimens in terms of taxonomy (type specimens, vouchers for barcodes). It is also a reference collection for various groups of high agronomic importance in Europe (phytophagous, forest or beneficial insects): aphids, dipterous leafminers (Agromyzidae), thrips, sawflies, leafrollers moths, lacewings, chalcidids, and large series of tropical insects. It ranks second in Europe (after the British Museum collection) for chalcidids, and first in the world for fig wasps (1500 species). Heritage collections of especially high scientific value comprise the Gruardet collection with 85% of the beetle species from France, the Perris and the Bonfils (Hemiptera) collections, all often consulted by specialists.
Mites
This collection comprises 20 000 specimens on slides or in ethanol, plus thousands of DNA extracts and dozens of type specimens.
The CBGP collection is the first in Europe for Phytoseiidae mites, with specimens from worldwide including 19 type-specimens collected from the 70s to nowadays, in the Palearctic, the Neotropics (Carribean, Brazil…) and Australasia (New Caledonia). It is the support of various collaborative programmes with University taxonomists from Sao Paulo (Brazil), Palerma and Padova (Italy), Valencia (Spain), and the Agricultural Research Council of Pretoria (South Africa).
This collection is also the first in the world for Tetranychidae mites from Madagascar and New Caledonia with 50 type-specimens gathered by J. Gutierrez (IRD) between 1960 and 1995 and specimens from Europe and the Mascarenes islands. Twenty other type-specimens of this family belong the Auger-Migeon collection which is still expanding. The researches led by CBGP on Tetranychidae are inserted in international programmes in collaboration with various universities (Sao Paulo Brazil, Valencia Spain, Ibaraki Japan) and the Agricultural Research Council of Pretoria South Africa).
The Continental Arthropods Collection is a part of BRC4env, one of the 5 specialized pillars of the French Research Infrastructure "Agricultural Resources for Research" (AgroBRC-RARe, http://www.enseignementsup-recherche.gouv.fr/cid99437/ressources-agronomiques-pour-la-recherche-rare.html) federating BRCs: animals as CRB-Anim, plant as CRB-Plantes, micro-organisms as CIRM, environmental resources as BRC4Env, and forests as CRB-Forets. BRC4Env includes BRCs and collections hosted by INRA, IRD, CIRAD, CNRS, technical and higher education institutions.
