EFFECTIVENESS OF PASSIVE TRAPPING AND SWEEP NETTING FOR INSECT POLLINATOR SAMPLING IN TURF COMMUNITIES

This dataset documents insect pollinator communities sampled from managed turfgrass plots in Georgia and Mississippi, USA, during summer 2021. Pollinators were collected over five consecutive days at each location using sweep netting and passive trapping methods (blue, white, yellow pan traps, and exploratory molasses traps). Each record represents a sampling event (plot × date × method) with associated species-level abundance data. Sampling occurred in low-maintenance bermudagrass lawns with naturally occurring white clover. The dataset was used to evaluate how active and passive sampling approaches differ in capturing pollinator abundance, richness, evenness, and community composition in urban and peri-urban turfgrass systems. Taxa were identified primarily to species, with a small number retained at species-group level due to cryptic complexes. Molasses trap data are included for completeness but were excluded from formal analyses because of low capture rates. These data support analyses of pollinator sampling efficiency and provide a resource for understanding method-specific biases and pollinator community structure in managed lawn environments.