The Tuscan Archipelago, inclusive of the Tuscan Archipelago National Park and recognised as Man and the Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO, is considered one of the major biodiversity hotspots of the Mediterranean Basin (Mittermeier et al. 2005). This Archipelago, rich in endemisms, Sardinian-Corsican elements and taxa originating from the Italian mainland, presents a rather complex biogeographic history linked to its origin during the convergence between Europe and Africa (Peccerillo 2017), the Pleistocene sea regression and driven by the changes that occurred in more recent times (Miocene to present), including those mediated by humans and their activities (Fattorini 2009, Ruzzier et al. 2021). The area has been the subject of extensive floristic, faunistic, and biogeographic studies in historical and more recent times; however, if we exclude vascular plants (e.g. Arrigoni et al. (2003), Foggi et al. (2014), Lazzaro et al. (2014), Carta et al. (2018)), vertebrates (e.g. Marinis et al. 1996, Angelici et al. 2009, Amori et al. 2015) and some selected groups of invertebrates (e.g. Dapporto and Cini (2007), Ceccolini et al. (2012), Rocchi et al. (2014), Fattorini et al. (2017), Barbato et al. (2018), Bellò and Ruzzier (2019), Ruzzier et al. (2020)), much still remains to be studied and important knowledge gaps exist regarding the richness and diversity of invertebrates on the various islands of the Archipelago. Coleoptera, in particular, represent a huge part of this hidden biodiversity and several families have never been addressed in their entirety. Buprestidae Leach, 1815 (Coleoptera, Buprestoidea) are a rather diverse beetle family counting more than 15,000 described species worldwide (Bellamy 2008), with more than 200 taxa recorded in Italy (Lobl and Lobl 2016). On the Tuscan Archipelago, the group has been poorly investigated, with only twenty-seven species recorded to date (Poggi 1976, Gobbi 1983, Curletti 1994, Curletti 2021). Buprestid beetles, thanks to their biology closely linked to plants, constitute an important element of biodiversity whose conservation is directly dependent on the protection of woodland and meadow environments. Many species are, in fact, included in the Red List of Saproxylic Beetles at both the Italian and European levels, demonstrating their vulnerability to habitat loss, degradation and fragmentation (Nieto and Alexander 2010, Audisio et al. 2014). In addition, several Buprestidae are of phytosanitary relevance (e.g. Evans et al. (2004), Sever et al. (2012), Ohsawa (2017), Jendek et al. (2018)) and interest in them grows with a view to protection and prevention against the introduction of non-native species (Ruzzier et al. 2023). The main objective of this contribution is, therefore, to update the knowledge status of the Buprestidae of the Tuscan Archipelago, providing up-to-date distribution data of the species on the various islands and to highlight, where possible, important elements of value or any critical issue.

Study area