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Student Poster Display

Plant-Insect Ecosystems

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Student Competition

Undergrad Poster Competition: P-IE and FIT, Conservation, Education, and Outreach

D3198: Malaise traps as tools for assessing abundance and biomass of Lepidoptera

Monday, November 11, 2024
9:00 AM – 5:00 PM MST
Location: Phoenix Convention Center, Exhibit Hall 6, PCC
Poster Display Student Competition
Recent high-profile papers have documented declines in insect diversity, population sizes, and biomass. A continent-wide study, the North American Insect Abundance Network (NAIAN), is working to assess potential declines through standardized sampling. Using Malaise traps at a suburban (McDaniel College, Westminster, MD) and a rural location (the McDaniel Environmental Center, MEC; New Windsor, MD) we collected insects during 72-hour sampling periods in early summer, 2024. In addition to contributing biomass data to the NAIAN project, we also focused specifically on Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies), recording biomass and abundance in these samples. Using our samples as well as data available from NAIAN, we assess how Lepidoptera biomass varies across locations from local (central Maryland) to regional (northeastern USA) scales. We hypothesized that Lepidoptera abundance and biomass would be greater in areas with more natural habitats such as grasslands, streams, and forests, and lower in more urban, developed locations. In early season samples in central Maryland, we found greater total insect biomass at the MEC (3.885 g) compared to campus (1.677 g). Additionally, Lepidoptera biomass was 1.8 times greater and abundance 2.1 times greater at the MEC, though Lepidoptera made up proportionally less of the total sample (26.8% vs 35.2% by mass). Combined with contributions from many other locations across the continent, these data provide context for ongoing efforts to determine which groups, regions, and land use patterns are important in understanding long-term insect trends.