CanPests V1.0: A reference dataset for arthropod pests of Canada integrating DNA barcodes

Arthropod pest species represent a serious threat to agriculture and forestry. Canada is no exception, with over 1200 recorded pest species. Although a consolidated dataset would benefit research, management, and policy, information on these species has never been compiled into a unitary database This publication merges available information to create a checklist for the pest insects of Canada and updates the taxonomy for these records based on the Catalogue of Life and GBIF. Each species record includes 1) their global distribution, 2) feeding guild for adults and larval stages (when available), 3) host plants data (when available) and 4) identifiers to obtain DNA barcodes from the Barcode of Life Data Systems (when available).