French Version
All-taxa biodiversity inventories (ATBI) aim to conduct an exhaustive inventory of all species living and existing in a given territory, and not just emblematic or symbolic ones. An ATBI allows to collect data about habitat, distribution, abundance, biology, but also time and date of observation for those species. All this can be contained in a limited period of time and observed species can be monitored over time: this specific methodology is called ATBI+M (Monitoring)
Thanks to ATBIs, fauna or flora unknown from a specific area can be discovered, but also entirely new species can be identified.
These projects can also help raise awareness of the species diversity among the general public, alert them about local extinctions, and show how important classification sciences (taxonomy, systematics) are. Finally, possessing such extensive knowledge about a given territory can be a very efficient way to better protect its biodiversity, by forming alliances between researchers and managers.
This ATBI + M (Monitoring: monitoring over space and time of bio-indicator species), extensive experience launched in 2006, is the first ever to be undertaken in Europe and the second worldwide after the one undertook in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the United States. This project is developed geminally on the Mercantour / Maritime Alps territory thanks to the collaboration between the Mercantour National Park (PNM), the Parco Naturale Alpi Marittime (PNAM), the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN), the Ministry in charge of Ecology, the Albert II of Monaco Foundation and the Princely government of Monaco, under the banner of the European Distributed Institute of Taxonomy (EDIT). Over 10,000 inventoried species, nearly twice as many as what was known in 2006: new species are described every year, including in Metropolitan France. Over 50 researchers (not to mention the 120 mycologists of the Congress) divided in 23 teams. 8 nationalities (in descending order) : France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Spain, Portugal Greece, United-States
The dynamic data acquisition was not created with IBG; it existed before and it houses it. IBG has led to a significant acceleration of the process (doubling in five years), a widespread mobilization of inventories and of the description of the biodiversity and the provision of two centuries of naturalists surveys in the territories.
