Insects from light trap (1992–2009), rooftop Zoological Museum, Copenhagen

Sampling event
Latest version published by Natural History Museum of Denmark on Sep 13, 2016 Natural History Museum of Denmark
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Publication date:
13 September 2016
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Data as a DwC-A file download 576 records in English (1 MB) - Update frequency: as needed
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Description

Collecting of Lepidoptera and Coleoptera was carried out with an automatically working modified Robinson light trap, which was installed 17.5 m above ground at the roof of the Zoological Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark. The trap worked around 4,500 nights from April to November during the years 1992 to 2009, and was emptied on an approximately weekly basis.

An analysis of this dataset was recently published in the Journal of Animal Ecology: https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.12452 The original data was deposited in Dryad and has now been republished in the standard Darwin Core Archive format using the IPT. Also note that the Lepidoptera data underwent a number of minor name corrections.

Since new collaborations are extremely valuable to make the most of the data, researchers are encouraged to contact the dataset creator to collaborate on joint analyses and meta-analyses.

Data Records

The data in this sampling event resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 576 records.

This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.

Versions

The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.

How to cite

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

Karlsholt O, Pedersen J, Hansen (deceased) M (2015): Insects from light trap (1992–2009), rooftop Zoological Museum, Copenhagen. v1.4. Natural History Museum of Denmark. Dataset/Samplingevent. http://doi.org/10.15468/xabmiz

Rights

Researchers should respect the following rights statement:

The publisher and rights holder of this work is Natural History Museum of Denmark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY 4.0) License.

GBIF Registration

This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: f506be53-9221-4b44-a41d-5aa0905ec216.  Natural History Museum of Denmark publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by DanBIF - Danish Biodiversity Information Facility.

Keywords

Samplingevent; Lepidoptera; Coleoptera; light trap; Robinson trap; time series; Denmark

External data

The resource data is also available in other formats

Contacts

Ole Karlsholt
  • Originator
Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen
DK
Jan Pedersen
  • Originator
Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen
DK
Michael Hansen (deceased)
  • Originator
Dmitry Schigel
Kyle Braak
  • Metadata Provider
  • Processor
GBIF
DK
Isabel Calabuig

Geographic Coverage

Rooftop of Natural History Museum Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark

Bounding Coordinates South West [55.7, 12.56], North East [55.7, 12.56]

Taxonomic Coverage

1076 species of Lepidoptera, representing 52 families. 467 species of Coleoptera, representing 52 families.

Order Lepidoptera, Coleoptera

Temporal Coverage

Start Date / End Date 1992-01-01 / 2009-01-01

Sampling Methods

Collecting of night flying insects was carried out with an automatically working modified Robinson light trap. A 250 W mercury vapour bulb was used as light source, and as a killing agent 1,1,2,2-tetrachlorethane was used. The trap worked around 4,500 nights from April to November during the years 1992 to 2009, and was emptied on an approximately weekly basis.

Study Extent The light trap was installed 17.5 m above ground at the roof of the Zoological Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark (N 55.702512°, E 12.558956°). The trap was placed on an east-facing roof at the museum building in an altitude of 17.5 meter above ground level, viz. above most surrounding buildings and trees. The museum is situated c. 3 km from the centre of Copenhagen.
Quality Control All Lepidoptera and Coleoptera were identified to species, counted and written into a data file, published here. The final data set was subjected to a thorough quality check, and the few records (<20 individual records) in Lepidoptera that could not be accounted for by comparison of collection periods were discarded. We excluded the first (1992) and the last year (2009) of the data set to minimize start-up effects (operating the trap in a standardized manner comparable to the remainder of the study period) and influence from alteration of the local habitat in 2009. Furthermore, in 1992 and 2009 the trap was not active in the entire season. To account for variation in sampling intervals, we grouped the data set into standardized 10-day periods the first starting on 1st of January (Julian Day 1) and the last period ending on December 26 (Julian Day 360). The 10-day interval is slightly longer than the mean sampling interval of 7 days. Furthermore, all handling and identification of material was carried out consistently throughout the entire period by the same group of researchers.

Method step description:

  1. In the study, all individual records of Lepidoptera and Coleoptera were collected, identified to species level and counted yielding qualitative (species) and quantitative (number of individuals within each species) data for the entire study period.
  2. All handling and identification of material was carried out consistently throughout the entire period by the same group of researchers.
  3. A portion of the material was pinned and is preserved in the Zoological Museum, University of Copenhagen. Note specimen records are not included in this dataset.
  4. A custom Java program was used to clean, augment, and parse the raw data into source data files that were uploaded and mapped in the IPT. For the purpose of inspiration for normalising other datasets, the Java program can be found here: https://github.com/kbraak/refine/blob/master/src/main/java/org/gbif/refine/datasets/nhmd/RooftopBugs.java

Bibliographic Citations

  1. Thomsen, P. F., Jørgensen, P. S., Bruun, H. H., Pedersen, J., Riis-Nielsen, T., Jonko, K., Słowińska, I., Rahbek, C., Karsholt, O. (2015), Resource specialists lead local insect community turnover associated with temperature – analysis of an 18-year full-seasonal record of moths and beetles. Journal of Animal Ecology. doi: 10.1111/1365-2656.12452 https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.12452
  2. The Coleoptera http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/series/catalogue-of-palaearctic-coleopteranomenclature follows the volumes of Löbl, I. & A. Smetana (eds): Catalogue of Palaearctic Coleoptera. http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/series/catalogue-of-palaearctic-coleoptera

Additional Metadata

Purpose The registration of all families of Lepidoptera and Coleoptera from a permanent light trap in such a large time span is rather unique, and the present dataset has potential for monitoring fluctuations in single species or larger groups of species, and to compare such changes with e.g. data on climate.
Maintenance Description This long-term monitoring project has finished.
Alternative Identifiers f506be53-9221-4b44-a41d-5aa0905ec216
http://danbif.au.dk/ipt/resource?r=rooftop