Long-term monitoring of ground-dwelling arthropods in central Arizona-Phoenix, ongoing since 1998

The Central Arizona–Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research (CAP LTER)
program has been monitoring ground-dwelling arthropods (e.g., insects,
ararchnids) at locations throughout the greater Phoenix metropolitan
area (GPMA) and surrounding Sonoran desert region since 1998.
Monitoring locations span a diversity of habitat types, including
mesic and xeric residential yards, commercial areas, agricultural
fields, desert locations within the GPMA (desert remnant), and
undisturbed desert locations. Organisms are collected quarterly using
unbaited pitfall traps, typically ten per location but with some
variation, exposed for approximately seventy-two hours. Organisms are
identified to the lowest practical taxonomic level and enumerated.
Many of the sampling locations established at the beginning of the
monitoring project were relocated in 2001-2002 to overlap with the CAP
LTER’s Ecological Survey of Central Arizona (ESCA; formerly named
Survey200) long-term monitoring sites, although within the same
general landscape categories.