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

Ole Karlsholt1, Jan Pedersen1, Michael Hansen (deceased)2, Dmitry Schigel3, Kyle Braak3

1 Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, , Denmark; 2 ; 3 GBIF, , Denmark

Corresponding author(s): Ole Karlsholt (okarsholt@snm.ku.dk)Jan Pedersen (japedersen@snm.ku.dk)Michael Hansen (deceased), Dmitry Schigel (dschigel@gbif.org), Kyle Braak (kbraak@gbif.org)

Received {date}; Revised {date}; Accepted {date}; Published {date}

Citation: Combination of authors, year of data paper publication (in parentheses), Title, Journal Name, Volume, Issue number (in parentheses), and doi of the data paper.

Resource Citation

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 http://doi.org/10.15468/xabmiz

Abstract

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.

Keywords: Samplingevent, Lepidoptera, Coleoptera, light trap, Robinson trap, time series, Denmark

General description

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.

Data published through GBIF: http://danbif.au.dk/ipt/resource?r=rooftop

Taxonomic coverage

General taxonomic coverage description: 1076 species of Lepidoptera, representing 52 families. 467 species of Coleoptera, representing 52 families.
Taxonomic ranks
Order: Lepidoptera, Coleoptera

Spatial coverage

General spatial coverage: Rooftop of Natural History Museum Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark
Coordinates: 55°42'0''N and 55°42'0''N Latitude; 12°33'36''E and 12°33'36''E Longitude 

Temporal coverage: January 1, 1992 - January 1, 2009

Methods

Method step description: 
- . 	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.
- . 	All handling and identification of material was carried out consistently throughout the entire period by the same group of researchers.
- . 	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.
- . 	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
Study extent description: 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.
Sampling description: 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.
Quality control description: 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.

Datasets

Dataset description
Object name: Darwin Core Archive Insects from light trap (1992–2009), rooftop Zoological Museum, Copenhagen
Character encoding: UTF-8
Format name: Darwin Core Archive format
Format version: 1.0
Distribution: http://danbif.au.dk/ipt/archive.do?r=rooftop
Publication date of data: 2016-09-13
Language: English
Licences of use: This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode">Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 License</a>.

External datasets

Dataset description
Object name: Original data in Dryad
Character encoding: Western (Mac OS Roman)
Format name: CSV
Distribution: http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.s4945

Dataset description
Object name: Taxa list (version 2)
Character encoding: UTF-8
Format name: CSV
Distribution: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kbraak/refine/master/src/main/resources/datasets/nhmd/TaxaList-v2.csv

Metadata language: English
Date of metadata creation: 2015-11-19
Hierarchy level: Dataset

References
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
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