Shooting area of infrared camera traps affects recorded taxonomic richness and abundance of ground-dwelling invertebrates

Ground-dwelling invertebrates are vital for soil biodiversity and function maintenance. Contemporary biodiversity assessment necessitates novel and automatic monitoring methods because of the threat of sharp reductions in soil biodiversity in farmlands worldwide. Using infrared camera traps (ICTs) is an effective method for assessing richness and abundance of ground-dwelling invertebrates. However, the influence that the shooting area of ICTs has on the diversity of ground-dwelling invertebrates has not been strongly considered during survey design. In this study, data from 6 ICTs with two shooting areas (A1, 38.48 cm2; A2, 400 cm2) were used to investigate ground-dwelling invertebrates in a farm in a city on the Eastern Coast of China from 20:00 on July 31 to 00:00 on September 29, 2022. Over the course of 59 days and 1,420 h, invertebrates within 9 taxa, 2,447 individuals, and 112,909 ind./m2 were observed from 222,912 images. Our results show that ICTs with relatively large shooting ..., , , # Shooting area of infrared camera traps affects recorded taxonomic richness and abundance of ground-dwelling invertebrates

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.79cnp5j3k](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.79cnp5j3k)

This dataset includes two Excel files: 'Abundance' and 'Density.' These files contain information on the abundance and density of each taxon, as well as the total count of ground-dwelling invertebrates in a farmland in Ningbo City, China, from 20:00 on July 31 to 23:00 on September 29, 2022.

The column names in both Excel files stand for:

* Date (both files): Monitoring date by ICTs.
* Time (both files): Monitoring time among 1 24-h day by ICTs.
* Group (both files): The two monitoring areas.
* ant.mean (both files): Mean abundance or density of ants (Formicidae).
* ant.std (both files): STD (standard deviation) of abundance or density for ants (Formicidae).
* slug.mean (both files): Mean abundance or density of slugs (Gastropoda).
* slug.std (both files): STD (stan...