Barcoding Megadiversity: An Arthropod Database from sites in the Neotropical Eastern Pacific Bioregion

We present the first dataset collection of arthropod diversity from ten terrestrial sites in the Neotropical Eastern Pacific Bioregion, in the territories of Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panamá, and the Galápagos and Cocos Islands. The twenty datasets comprise 1-7 years of sampling. Together, we document a total of 952,087 arthropod specimens and 45,812 BINs. The datasets distributed in 1 phylum, 7 classes, 39 orders, 556 families, and 2,318 genera. Just only the first year of sampling, the datasets revealed unprecedented arthropod diversity; notably, at Mashpi in Ecuador (n = 7,848 BINs) and Guanacaste in Costa Rica (n = 7,790 BINs), both exhibited the highest number of unique BINs. Arthropod abundance was greatest at Quetzales (n = 130,193 records) and Barú (n = 111,044 records) in Costa Rica. The first five most abundant orders were Diptera (n = 20,901 BINs), Hymenoptera (n = 8,964 BINs), Coleoptera (n = 4,272 BINs), Lepidoptera (n = 3,634 BINs), and Hemiptera (n = 2,166 BINs). This dataset collection provides a robust baseline for future arthropod biodiversity research