Data for: Lava crickets (Caconemobius spp.) on Hawai´i Island: first colonizers or persisters in extreme habitats?

1. Primary succession after a volcanic eruption is a major ecological process, but relatively little is known about insects that colonize barren lava before plants become established.

2. On Hawai´i Island, the endemic cricket, Caconemobius fori Gurney & Rentz, 1978, is known as the first multicellular life form to colonize lava after an eruption from Kīlauea Volcano. In the Kona region, a congener, Caconemobius anahulu Otte,1994 inhabits unvegetated lava flows from Hualālai Volcano, but little has been documented about its distribution.

3. Our aim was to characterize the presence/absence of Caconemobius spp. across lava flows that are largely unvegetated, but differ in age since eruption and connectivity to older flows. We used baited live traps to survey 9 month–50 year-old Kīlauea lava flows for C. fori, and ~220 year-old Hualālai lava flows for C. anahulu.

4. We found no evidence that C. fori has colonized the KÄ«lauea flows from the 2018 eruption. However, we did discove...