Scientific and public spider observation records from Sweden

This project compares spider biodiversity records from two public citizen science platforms, iNaturalist and the Swedish biodiversity database Artportalen, and data from a national scientific survey, the Swedish Malaise Trap Project (SMTP). The analysis highlights the strengths and biases of each source in terms of spatial coverage and species representation. Citizen science platforms provide cost-effective and large-scale data collection but tend to overrepresent common, easily observed species in populated areas. Traditional scientific surveys contribute valuable records from rural areas and are especially effective at detecting rare and cryptic species. Combining these approaches improves our understanding of spider distributions across Sweden and supports more comprehensive biodiversity monitoring.
, , This dataset is part of the article “The value of public databases for our knowledge of national spider biodiversity compared to a long-term scientific monitoring project,” currently under review in the journal *Insect Conservation and Diversity*.

**Data sources and collection:**

**SMTP** spider data were collected using Malaise traps as part of a nationwide survey conducted between 2003 and 2006.

**Artportalen** spider observations were retrieved via Analysportalen in May 2024, prior to its replacement by Fynddata. All available spider records from Sweden at the time of access were included.

**iNaturalist** spider observations were manually extracted through a direct search in May 2024, filtered to include only verifiable records from Sweden. All such observations available at the time were included.

The dataset includes all the data and R-scripts necessary to reproduce the analyses and figures presented in the study, with figures 1 and 6 created using QGIS. It contains spider obs...,