The diversity and distributions of the beetles (Insecta: Coleoptera) of the Guadeloupe Archipelago (Grande-Terre, Basse-Terre, La Désirade, Marie-Galante, Les Saintes, and Petite-Terre), Lesser Antilles

Abstract

The Guadeloupe Archipelago, the French overseas Département de Guadeloupe, is a geographically associated group of islands and a natural biogeographic unit. The islands have been available for terrestrial colonization since the late Tertiary. From the viewpoint of beetle systematics and biodiversity, this is the most important set of islands of the Lesser Antilles because more species have been described or recorded from Guadeloupe than any other island or group in the Lesser Antilles. We present a summary of the 1338 beetle species recorded in the literature from the archipelago, in 60 families, and 719 genera. The families with the largest numbers of species are Curculionidae (420), Staphylinidae (153), Chrysomelidae (75), Cerambycidae (69), Scarabaeidae (64), and Tenebrionidae (59). Four hundred eighty two species are known only from one or more islands of the Guadeloupe group and likely speciated there. Guadeloupe is the type locality for an additional 59 species. At least 61 species have been accidentally introduced by human activities. A total of 261 species are known only from the Lesser Antilles including Guadeloupe. The remaining species are naturally more widespread in the Lesser Antilles, or the West Indies, and elsewhere in the New World. The actual number of species on the Guadeloupe Archipelago is estimated to be around 1850 or more species