Lhoumeau, S., & Borges, P. A. V. (2025). Stratified sampling of Azorean forest arthropods. Version 1.0. Universidade dos Açores. Samplingevent dataset.
In the summer of 2024, a monitoring study was conducted in the Azorean Islands of Terceira (Portugal) to assess arthropod diversity and distribution in native and exotic forests. This initiative forms part of a project that aims to evaluate the impact of habitat structure change on arthropod food web complexity in Azorean forests. In particular, the study seeks to assess how changes in arthropod biodiversity are influenced by the structural complexity of forestsThe current dataset comprises terrestrial arthropods collected using SLAM (Sea, Land, and Air Malaise) traps across diverse forest strata and Pitfall traps.
The dataset encompasses arthropods from the Arachnida (excluding Acari), Diplopoda, Chilopoda, and Insecta classes (excluding Collembola, Diptera, Hymenoptera, and Lepidoptera A total of 32,846 specimens were collected, with 18,885 (57%) identified at the species or subspecies level, including 15,447 adults, and select juveniles for taxa such as Araneae and Hemiptera due to the availability of reliable identification methods. The resulting dataset encompasses 131 species and 9 subspecies, distributed across 20 orders, 75 families, and 132 genera.
Notably, the Hemiptera order emerged as the most prevalent, with a total of 10,606 recorded specimens, and it also stood as the most taxonomically diverse, encompassing 17 distinct families.
The ten most prevalent species comprise predominantly endemic and native non-endemic species, with a mere two exotic species detected among them.
This comprehensive dataset serves as a significant augmentation of the existing baseline knowledge concerning the diversity of Azorean arthropods, thereby facilitating the formulation of future long-term ecological comparisons. The dataset offers invaluable insights into the vertical distribution of species abundance within both native and secondary forests of the Azores.
