Raw data: Temperature and water availability drive insect seasonality across a temperate and a tropical region

The more insects there are, the more food there is for insectivores and the higher the likelihood of insect-associated ecosystem services. Yet, we lack insights into the drivers of insect biomass over space and seasons, both for tropical and temperate zones. We used 245 Malaise traps, managed by 191 volunteers and park guards, to characterise year-round flying insect biomass in a temperate (Sweden) and a tropical (Madagascar) country. Surprisingly, we found that local insect biomass was similar across zones. In Sweden, local insect biomass increased with accumulated heat and varied across habitats, while biomass in Madagascar was unrelated to the environmental predictors measured. Drivers behind seasonality partly converged: In both countries, the seasonality of insect biomass differed between warmer and colder sites and wetter and drier sites. In Sweden, short-term deviations from expected season-specific biomass were explained by week-to-week fluctuations in accumulated heat, rainfall..., To describe the large-scale distribution of flying insect biomass, we sampled insects during one year in a temperate (Sweden; latitude 55.3 to 69.1) and a tropical (Madagascar; latitude -25.6 to -12.0) country, across the full latitudinal and longitudinal gradient of each country. Sweden and Madagascar are comparable in their surface area, covering ~450,000 and ~590,000 km2 respectively. The climate in Sweden ranges from oceanic to sub-Arctic, and in Madagascar from tropical humid to dry tropical.
Insects were collected with Malaise traps, and preserved in 95% ethanol. In Sweden, 195 Malaise traps were set out between January and December 2019. Samples from Malaise traps were collected monthly or bi-weekly during winter and autumn (approx. October to February, depending on latitude) and weekly during spring and summer (approx. March to September, depending on latitude). In Madagascar, 50 Malaise traps were set out from August 2019 to July 2020. Samples from Malaise traps were collected ..., , # Raw data: Temperature and water availability drive insect seasonality across a temperate and a tropical region

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Datasets include information on samples of insect biomass, collected in Sweden and Madagascar. Datasets also include climatic predictors used in the analyses, both for Sweden and Madagascar.

## Description of the Data and file structure

More information on the data files and structure can be found in the \"README.xlsx\".

The tab \"Description of the data files\" contains general information on each dataset.

The tab \"metadata\" contains information on each column in the datasets.

## Sharing/Access Information

*Climate variables were generated based on data downloaded from the ERA5-Land database.*

Muñoz Sabater, J. (2019): ERA5-Land hourly data from 1950 to present. Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) Climate Data Store (CDS).  DOI: 10.24381/cds.e2161bac

[https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/cdsapp#!/dataset/reanalysis-era5-land?tab=overview](https://cds.climate.cope...