Exploring the diversity of leafhoppers (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae) in the Eastern Canadian Arctic

The diversity of leafhoppers (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae) in the Arctic is likely underestimated, limiting the ability to document community changes due to uncertainty in species occurrence and a lack of long-term monitoring data. The Nunavik Sentinels community science program documents pollinator diversity across the Boreal, Subarctic, and Arctic regions of Québec (Eeyou Istchee and Nunavik) and Newfoundland and Labrador (Nunatsiavut). Although not a target, leafhoppers were incidentally collected, providing a unique resource for surveying this overlooked taxon. Here, we report leafhoppers collected by the Nunavik Sentinels from 2018 to 2023, comprising 25 identified species and another 7 at the genus level. Out of the 25 species collected, 14 are new records for the Québec and Labrador region. Nearly all species have records in other provinces and territories, indicating extensive Boreal or Nearctic distributions. Species richness per site per year ranged from 1 to 12, with the highest diversity recorded in the Taiga Shield Subarctic (20 species). Species richness declined with increasing latitude, but notably, two species [Colladonus torneella (Zetterstedt) and Latalus missellus (Ball)] were found in the coldest Arctic ecozones. Our study provides the first baseline for leafhopper diversity in the Eastern Canadian Arctic, highlighting the value of citizen-science programs and Indigenous community knowledge in documenting and monitoring insect biodiversity amid the rapidly transforming Northern environment.