Geometridae moths along forest urban gradient

These data correspond to Geometridae moths collected at different land-use types: forest, forest-pasture, pasture, and urban. Moths were studied in southern Ecuador, in the municipality of Loja, the capital of Loja province (03º59’ S, 79º12’ W; elevation: 2200 m asl), situated in the vicinity of Podocarpus National Park.
Twelve localities were selected to represent the current forest-to-urban gradient comprising four distinct land-use types, with three replicate localities for each land-use class: montane forest (referenced hereafter as Forest Fo), disturbed montane forest (Forest-Pasture Fo-Pa), Pastures (Pasture Pa), and urban settlement areas (Urban Ur). These sites were located along riparian margins. Forest localities were selected in the headwaters of the city due to their environmental integrity and high conservation value. Forest-Pasture sites were characterized by a mix of secondary (or degraded) forest and non-intensive cattle pastures. Pastures sites were the most homogenous land-use type, characterized by intensive pastures for livestock. Finally, urban sites were selected in planted ornamental vegetation associated with riparian buffers. The minimum distance between sampling localities was ca. 1.5 km to minimize spatial autocorrelation. For each locality, we selected two sampling sites separated by 300 m to ensure the independence of samples. In each sampling site, moths were manually sampled at light traps consisting of two 15 W tubes (Sylvania blacklight-blue, F 15 W/BLB-TB, and Philips TLD 15 W 05) in a white gauze cylinder (height 1.6 m, diameter 0.6 m) which were placed at ground level..

本数据集的样本为采集自四类不同土地利用类型的尺蛾科（Geometridae）蛾类。采样区域位于厄瓜多尔南部洛哈省省会洛哈市（南纬03°59′，西经79°12′；海拔2200米），毗邻波多卡罗普斯国家公园（Podocarpus National Park）。

研究共选取12个采样点以表征当前森林-城市土地利用梯度，涵盖4种明确的土地利用类型，每种类型设置3个重复采样点：山地森林（下文简称Fo）、受干扰山地森林（林牧交错型，下文简称Fo-Pa）、牧场（下文简称Pa）与城镇定居区（下文简称Ur）。所有采样点均沿河岸带布设。森林采样点选取于城市上游河源区，因其生态完整性佳且保育价值较高。林牧交错型采样点以次生（或退化）森林与非集约化肉牛牧场的混合景观为特征。牧场采样点为四类土地利用类型中均一性最高的类别，以集约化畜牧牧场为典型特征。城区采样点则选取于与河岸缓冲带相关联的人工观赏植被区域。

为最大限度降低空间自相关效应，采样点间的最小间距约为1.5千米。每个采样区域内选取2个间距为300米的采样亚点，以保障样本独立性。在每个采样亚点中，研究人员采用灯诱装置人工采集蛾类样本：该装置由两支15瓦灯管组成，分别为喜万年（Sylvania）黑光灯蓝管F 15 W/BLB-TB与飞利浦（Philips）TLD 15 W 05灯管，安装于高度1.6米、直径0.6米的白色纱笼内，布设至地面高度。