Abstract
Insect activity powers ecosystems and food production globally. Although insect activity is known to vary with the rise and setting of the sun, there is surprisingly limited empirical information on how insect abundance and richness varies across the 24-hour day–night (diel) cycle. Moreover, commonly used methods for sampling insects such as light traps do not provide suitable comparisons of community properties between diel periods. We present a dataset of 1512 observations of abundance and richness during diurnal and nocturnal periods in insect communities worldwide. The data were collected from 99 studies that systematically sampled insect communities during day and night, using sampling methods minimally influenced by diel variation, such as movement-based interception traps. Spanning six continents, 41 countries and 16 insect orders, the data can support investigations into the factors influencing insect diel preferences as well as the causes and consequences of temporal changes in insect biodiversity. The data also provides key baseline information on the diel activity patterns of insect communities for long-term ecological monitoring. These pursuits take on added significance considering contemporary ‘insect declines’ and increasing anthropogenic impacts on diurnal and nocturnal biodiversity.
Similar content being viewed by others
Background & Summary
Insects are a major component of biodiversity1 and essential to the functioning of ecosystems through their roles in pollination2, decomposition3, nutrient cycling4 and food web dynamics5. Despite the tremendous ecological and economic importance of insects, there remains limited knowledge of their temporal activity patterns6, especially across the day–night (diel) cycle7. Where studied, individual insect species have often displayed distinct diel activity preferences, influenced by factors such as predation risk8, climatic fluctuations9, resource availability10, and evolutionary history11. The diurnal and nocturnal preferences of major taxonomic lineages such as bees12 and moths11 have also been documented. However, it is less clear how diel periods affect the abundance and composition of active insects in ecological communities, and how diel patterns in insect community structure vary across different geographic regions and habitats. A recent meta-analysis revealed extensive variation in the diel activity patterns of insect communities globally, highlighting the potential existence of rich but poorly understood mechanisms13.
Documenting diel patterns in the abundance and richness of insect communities can yield insight into fundamental temporal dimensions for species coexistence14, and the dynamics of important insect-mediated ecosystem functions15. Such work is urgently needed, given growing evidence of insect declines16 and the distinct impacts of anthropogenic threats such as climate change17 and artificial light pollution18 on diurnal and nocturnal communities. Nonetheless, only a limited number of studies have documented patterns in the abundance and richness of insect communities during comparable day and night periods. No standardised, publicly accessible dataset for this basic ecological information also exists. The paucity of data is at least partly due to methodological limitations. Many ‘standard’ sampling techniques for collecting insects are unsuitable for investigations across the entire spectrum of diel activity because they inherently vary in collection efficiency between day and night (e.g., coloured pan-traps during the day, or light traps at night). Other widely used collecting techniques, such as sweep-netting, litter sampling and canopy fogging inadvertently capture inactive individuals.
Here, we present a dataset on the observed diel patterns in abundance and richness in insect communities worldwide. We compiled the data from 99 studies – identified in a literature search – which used methods that exclusively collected active individuals and provided comparable collections across diel periods, such as movement-based interception traps (e.g., pitfall traps, malaise traps, drift nets) and some attraction-based bait traps (e.g., trophic baits) (see Methods).
The dataset includes 1512 observations of insect abundance and richness during diurnal and nocturnal periods from 123 unique localities in 41 countries. The observations span all continents except Antarctica (Fig. 1a) and are distributed across tropical and temperate zones in both hemispheres (latitudinal range: 45°S–63°N). Nonetheless, as is symptomatic of global biodiversity data19, the observations show some biases in geographic coverage, with notable gaps in Asia and Africa (Fig. 1a).
The taxonomic composition of the insect communities sampled spans 16 insect orders (Fig. 1b). Although most studies sampled communities of flies20,21,22, beetles23,24 and ants25,26, the dataset nonetheless includes observations for a variety of other insect taxa of diverse trophic levels and functional groups, including taxa that are seldom represented in community studies (e.g., Neuroptera, Hemiptera, Thysanoptera) (Fig. 1b). Still, a substantial number of observations were not identified to order (labelled ‘insecta’ in Fig. 1b), reflecting pervasive taxonomic impediments in ecological studies of insects27.
The studies in the dataset span an approximate 70-year period from the 1950s28 to the 2020s29 (Fig. 1c). Notably, since the 1980s, the number of published studies documenting diel patterns in insect communities during each five-year period has remained relatively constant (ranging between 7–12 studies), except during early the 2000s when these numbers doubled (Fig. 1c). While the overall stable trend reflects the lasting value of information on diel patterns of insect communities, the relatively low numbers underscore that these patterns remain heavily understudied.
Table 1 lists examples of observations in the dataset that collectively illustrate the considerable variation in the diel partitioning of abundance and richness in insect communities. While these records showcase the potentially heterogeneous nature of diel effects on abundance and richness in insect communities, formal meta(analyses) will be required to quantify these effects and elucidate their relationships with abiotic and biotic factors in different habitats and geographic regions. To this end, where available, the dataset also includes values of sample-based means and standard deviations for observations of abundance and richness during specific diel periods. In addition, the dataset includes data for a range of observation-specific environmental variables such as the general ecosystem type (i.e., terrestrial or aquatic), surrounding habitat (e.g., grassland, shrubland, forest, river), vertical habitat stratum sampled (e.g., ground surface, understorey, canopy), and season of sampling (e.g., dry or wet seasons in tropical areas, and cool or warm seasons in temperate areas) based on the information reported in each study. With the geographic coordinates corresponding to each observation, users of the dataset will also be able extract data for other relevant environmental parameters from global databases (e.g., WorldClim30).
Methods
We performed a literature search in all Web of Science (WoS) databases (https://webofscience.com) on 28th April 2022 for studies that sampled insect communities across the diel cycle. The search terms used were ‘(insect) AND (community OR communities) AND (activity OR diel OR nocturnal OR diurnal OR night OR day)’. We sorted the results by relevance and screened the abstracts of the first 2000 results to identify relevant publications (beyond the 1350th result, zero to two relevant publications were identified out of every 50 results, while no relevant publications were identified beyond the 1850th result).
We only included studies that systematically sampled insect communities with identical collection methods in day and night periods, which were defined within studies and consistently referred to as the period after sunrise and before sunset, and the period after sunset and before sunrise, respectively. We included studies that used collection methods that collected active individuals, such as movement interception traps (e.g., pitfall traps, sticky traps, malaise traps) and attractive traps (e.g., trophic baits). We excluded studies that used methods which could potentially collect inactive individuals (e.g., sweep-netting, beating) as well as methods for which collection efficiency or attractiveness was influenced by environmental changes across the diel cycle, such as light traps.
For each relevant study, we recorded the total number of different taxa and total abundance of individuals across all day samples, all night samples, and all samples combined. Where reported, we also recorded the mean number of taxa and mean abundance of individuals across all day and all night samples, as well as the corresponding standard deviations (SD) and sample sizes (n). In a few cases where such information was not reported in the text but available from illustrated figures (e.g., bar charts with corresponding error bars), the information was obtained using digital measurements of the figures in ImageJ software31. In most studies, each sample was a single collection unit (e.g., a single trap or net). Most studies identified insect taxa to the species level (with a few identifying to the genus, subfamily or family level) and measured insect abundance in terms of the numbers of individuals encountered (a minority used frequencies of occurrence or biomass).
In addition to the observed richness and abundance in insect communities during different diel periods, we recorded information on the geographic location, habitat, sampling period, sampling method and sampled taxa in each study. Using the reported geographic coordinates of the sampled localities, we also determined the surrounding elevation (if not reported within the study) from Google Earth.
Data Records
A master file is deposited at Figshare32. The master file contains:
-
1.
Insect diel activity dataset.
-
2.
Metadata to insect diel activity dataset.
Technical Validation
All data compilation was performed by the same researcher referring to the same reference material to ensure consistency. To verify the locations of observed insect communities, the reported coordinates of sampling sites were entered into Google Earth and geographic identifiers (e.g., states and road names) were compared to the information reported in each study.
Usage Notes
The data can contribute to: (i) (meta)analyses on the factors influencing diel patterns in the diversity of insect communities; (ii) knowledge on the diel preferences of different insect taxa and functional groups; (iii) studies on how diel activity patterns of insect communities change over time, through comparisons of the baseline information consolidated here to future observations of insect communities in the same locations.
Code availability
No code was used in this study.
References
Stork, N. E. How many species of insects and other terrestrial arthropods are there on Earth? Ann. Rev. Entomol. 63, 31–45 (2018).
Free, J. B. Insect pollination of crops. London, UK: Academic press (1993).
Zeng, X. et al. Global contribution of invertebrates to forest litter decomposition. Ecol. Lett. 27, e14423 (2024).
Belovsky, G. E. & Slade, J. B. Insect herbivory accelerates nutrient cycling and increases plant production. PNAS 97, 14412–14417 (2000).
Potapov, A. M. et al. Rainforest transformation reallocates energy from green to brown food webs. Nature 627, 116–122 (2024).
Kishimoto‐Yamada, K. & Itioka, T. How much have we learned about seasonality in tropical insect abundance since Wolda (1988)? Entomol. Sci. 18, 407–419 (2015).
Springate, N. D. & Basset, Y. Diel activity of arboreal arthropods associated with Papua New Guinean trees. J. Nat. Hist. 30, 101–112 (1996).
Johnson, J. H. Diel feeding ecology of three species of aquatic insects. J. Freshw. Ecol. 10, 183–188 (1995).
Zoller, L., Bennett, J. M. & Knight, T. M. Diel-scale temporal dynamics in the abundance and composition of pollinators in the Arctic summer. Sci. Rep. 10, 21187 (2020).
Armbruster, W. S. & McCormick, K. D. Diel foraging patterns of male euglossine bees: ecological causes and evolutionary responses by plants. Biotropica 22, 160–171 (1990).
Kawahara, A. Y. et al. Diel behavior in moths and butterflies: a synthesis of data illuminates the evolution of temporal activity. Org. Divers. Evol. 18, 13–27 (2018).
Cordeiro, G. D. et al. Nocturnal bees as crop pollinators. Agronomy 11, 1014 (2021).
Wong, M. K. L. & Didham, R. K. Global meta-analysis reveals overall higher nocturnal than diurnal activity in insect communities. Nat. Commun. 15, 3236 (2024).
Kronfeld-Schor, N. & Dayan, T. Partitioning of time as an ecological resource. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Evol. Syst. 34, 153–181 (2003).
Fijen, T. P., Roovers, A., van Deijk, J. & van Grunsven, R. H. Nocturnal pollination is equally important as, and complementary to, diurnal pollination for strawberry fruit production. Agric. Ecosyst. Environ. 350, 108475 (2023).
Wagner, D. L. Insect declines in the Anthropocene. Annu. Rev. Entomol. 65, 457–480 (2020).
Speights, C. J., Harmon, J. P. & Barton, B. T. Contrasting the potential effects of daytime versus nighttime warming on insects. Curr. Opin. Insect Sci. 23, 1–6 (2017).
Macgregor, C. J., Pocock, M. J., Fox, R. & Evans, D. M. Pollination by nocturnal L epidoptera, and the effects of light pollution: a review. Ecol. Entomol. 40, 187–198 (2015).
Hughes, A. C. et al. Sampling biases shape our view of the natural world. Ecography 44, 1259–1269 (2021).
Benke, A. C., Hunter, R. J. & Parrish, F. K. Invertebrate drift dynamics in a subtropical blackwater river. J. North Am. Benthol. Soc. 5, 173–190 (1986).
Guimarães, A. É., Gentile, C., Lopes, C. M. & Mello, R. P. D. Ecology of mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae) in areas of Serra do Mar State Park, State of São Paulo, Brazil. III-daily biting rhythms and lunar cycle influence. Mem. Inst. Oswaldo Cruz 95, 753–760 (2000).
Soares, T. F. & Vasconcelos, S. D. Diurnal and nocturnal flight activity of blow flies (Diptera: Calliphoridae) in a rainforest fragment in Brazil: implications for the colonization of homicide victims. J. Forensic Sci. 61, 1571–1577 (2016).
Cole, L. J. et al. Relationships between agricultural management and ecological groups of ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) on Scottish farmland. Agric. Ecosyst. Environ. 93, 323–336 (2002).
Viljanen, H. et al. Structure of local communities of endemic dung beetles in Madagascar. J. Trop. Ecol. 26, 481–496 (2010).
Andersen, A. N. Species diversity and temporal distribution of ants in the semi‐arid mallee region of northwestern Victoria. Austral Ecol. 8, 127–137 (1983).
Yamane, S., Itino, T. & Nona, A. R. Ground ant fauna in a Bornean dipterocarp forest. Raffles Bull. Zool. 44, 253–262 (1996).
Montgomery, G. A. et al. Is the insect apocalypse upon us? How to find out. Biol. Conserv. 241, 108327 (2020).
Williams, G. The seasonal and diurnal activity of the fauna sampled by pitfall traps in different habitats. J. Anim. Ecol. 28, 1–13 (1959).
Sands, B., Mgidiswa, N., Curson, S., Nyamukondiwa, C. & Wall, R. Dung beetle community assemblages in a southern African landscape: niche overlap between domestic and wild herbivore dung. Bull. Entomol. Res. 112, 131–142 (2022).
Fick, S. E. & Hijmans, R. J. WorldClim 2: new 1‐km spatial resolution climate surfaces for global land areas. Int. J. Climatol. 37, 4302–4315 (2017).
Abràmoff, M. D., Magalhães, P. J. & Ram, S. J. Image processing with ImageJ. Biophotonics Int. 11, 36–42 (2004).
Wong, M. K. L. & Didham, R. K. A global dataset of diel activity patterns in insect communities. figshare https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.7056707.v1 (2024).
Grevé, M. E., Houadria, M., Andersen, A. N. & Menzel, F. Niche differentiation in rainforest ant communities across three continents. Ecol. Evol. 9, 8601–8615 (2019).
Alencar, J. et al. Biodiversity and times of activity of mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae) in the biome of the Atlantic Forest in the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. J. Med. Entomol. 48, 223–231 (2011).
Móra, A., Dévai, G., Tóthmérész, B. & Csépes, E. Short-time changes in composition of chironomid assemblages at a cross-section of the River Tisza. Int. Ver. Theor. Angew. Limnol. 29, 2099–2102 (2006).
Gryuntal, S. Y. Daily activity of carabid beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) in the forests of various geographical zones in the East European (Russian) plain. Russ. Entomol. J. 17, 359–365 (2008).
Hampton, S. E. & Friedenberg, N. A. Nocturnal increases in the use of near-surface water by pond animals. Hydrobiologia 477, 171–179 (2002).
Acknowledgements
The authors wish acknowledge the tireless contributions of the many entomologists working day and night to obtain crucial empirical data on insect communities. M.K.L.W. was supported by a Forrest Fellowship from the Forrest Research Foundation.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
M.K.L.W. led the study design, collected the data, created the dataset and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. R.K.D. contributed to the study design, creation of the dataset, and writing of the manuscript.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Additional information
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
About this article
Cite this article
Wong, M.K.L., Didham, R. A global dataset of diel activity patterns in insect communities. Sci Data 11, 558 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-024-03408-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-024-03408-8
- Springer Nature Limited