DOI: 10.5063/f11v5c9v
title: A global database of long-term changes in insect assemblages

description: This data set under CC-BY license contains time series of total abundance and/or biomass of assemblages of insect, arachnid and Entognatha assemblages (grouped at the family level or higher taxonomic resolution), monitored by standardized means for ten or more years. The data were derived from 166 data sources, representing a total of 1676 sites from 41 countries. The time series for abundance and biomass represent the aggregated number of all individuals of all taxa monitored at each site. The data set consists of four linked tables, representing information on the study level, the plot level, about sampling, and the measured assemblage sizes. all references to the original data sources can be found in the pdf with references, and a Google Earth file (kml) file presents the locations (including metadata) of all datasets. When using (parts of) this data set, please respect the original open access licenses. This data set underlies all analyses performed in the paper 'Meta-analysis reveals declines in terrestrial, but increases in freshwater insect abundances', a meta-analysis of changes in insect assemblage sizes, and is accompanied by a data paper entitled 'InsectChange – a global database of temporal changes in insect and arachnid assemblages'. Consulting the data paper before use is recommended. Tables that can be used to calculate trends of specific taxa and for species richness will be added as they become available. The data set consists of four tables that are linked by the columns 'DataSource_ID'. and 'Plot_ID', and a table with references to original research. In the table 'DataSources', descriptive data is provided at the dataset level: Links are provided to online repositories where the original data can be found, it describes whether the dataset provides data on biomass, abundance or both, the invertebrate group under study, the realm, and describes the location of sampling at different geographic scales (continent to state). This table also contains a reference column. The full reference to the original data is found in the file 'References_to_original_data_sources.pdf'. In the table 'PlotData' more details on each site within each dataset are provided: there is data on the exact location of each plot, whether the plots were experimentally manipulated, and if there was any spatial grouping of sites (column 'Location'). Additionally, this table contains all explanatory variables used for analysis, e.g. climate change variables, land-use variables, protection status. The table 'SampleData' describes the exact source of the data (table X, figure X, etc), the extraction methods, as well as the sampling methods (derived from the original publications). This includes the sampling method, sampling area, sample size, and how the aggregation of samples was done, if reported. Also, any calculations we did on the original data (e.g. reverse log transformations) are detailed here, but more details are provided in the data paper. This table links to the table 'DataSources' by the column 'DataSource_ID'. Note that each datasource may contain multiple entries in the 'SampleData' table if the data were presented in different figures or tables, or if there was any other necessity to split information on sampling details. The table 'InsectAbundanceBiomassData' provides the insect abundance or biomass numbers as analysed in the paper. It contains columns matching to the tables 'DataSources' and 'PlotData', as well as year of sampling, a descriptor of the period within the year of sampling (this was used as a random effect), the unit in which the number is reported (abundance or biomass), and the estimated abundance or biomass. In the column for Number, missing data are included (NA). The years with missing data were added because this was essential for the analysis performed, and retained here because they are easier to remove than to add. Linking the table 'InsectAbundanceBiomassData.csv' with 'PlotData.csv' by column 'Plot_ID', and with 'DataSources.csv' by column 'DataSource_ID' will provide the full dataframe used for all analyses. Detailed explanations of all column headers and terms are available in the ReadMe file, and more details will be available in the forthcoming data paper. WARNING: Because of the disparate sampling methods and various spatial and temporal scales used to collect the original data, this dataset should never be used to test for differences in insect abundance/biomass among locations (i.e. differences in intercept). The data can only be used to study temporal trends, by testing for differences in slopes. The data are standardized within plots to allow the temporal comparison, but not necessarily among plots (even within one dataset).