Geometridae moths along forest urban gradient

These data correspond to Geometridae moths collected at different land-use types: forest, forest-pasture, pasture, and urban. Moths were studied in southern Ecuador, in the municipality of Loja, the capital of Loja province (03º59’ S, 79º12’ W; elevation: 2200 m asl), situated in the vicinity of Podocarpus National Park.
Twelve localities were selected to represent the current forest-to-urban gradient comprising four distinct land-use types, with three replicate localities for each land-use class: montane forest (referenced hereafter as Forest Fo), disturbed montane forest (Forest-Pasture Fo-Pa), Pastures (Pasture Pa), and urban settlement areas (Urban Ur). These sites were located along riparian margins. Forest localities were selected in the headwaters of the city due to their environmental integrity and high conservation value. Forest-Pasture sites were characterized by a mix of secondary (or degraded) forest and non-intensive cattle pastures. Pastures sites were the most homogenous land-use type, characterized by intensive pastures for livestock. Finally, urban sites were selected in planted ornamental vegetation associated with riparian buffers. The minimum distance between sampling localities was ca. 1.5 km to minimize spatial autocorrelation. For each locality, we selected two sampling sites separated by 300 m to ensure the independence of samples. In each sampling site, moths were manually sampled at light traps consisting of two 15 W tubes (Sylvania blacklight-blue, F 15 W/BLB-TB, and Philips TLD 15 W 05) in a white gauze cylinder (height 1.6 m, diameter 0.6 m) which were placed at ground level..

本数据集包含在多种土地利用类型下采集的 Geometridae 科蛾类数据：森林、森林草原、草原和城市。研究地点位于厄瓜多尔南部洛哈市（纬度 03º59’ S，经度 79º12’ W；海拔 2200 米），该市为洛哈省省会，毗邻波多卡帕斯国家公园。选取了十二个地点，以代表当前森林至城市梯度中的四种不同土地利用类型，每种土地利用类型设有三个重复的地点：山地森林（以下简称森林Fo）、受干扰的山地森林（森林草原Fo-Pa）、牧场（牧场Pa）和城市居住区（城市Ur）。这些地点位于河岸边缘。选择森林地点位于城市水源地，因其环境完整性和高保护价值。森林草原地点以次生（或退化）森林与非集约化放牧草地混合为特征。牧场地点是土地利用类型中最同质的，以集约化放牧为特征。最后，城市地点选在河岸缓冲区附近的种植观赏植物区。采样地点之间的最小距离约为 1.5 公里，以最小化空间自相关。在每个地点，选取两个相距 300 米的采样点，以确保样本的独立性。在每个采样点，通过放置在地面水平的白色纱网圆柱体（高 1.6 米，直径 0.6 米）内的两种 15 瓦灯管（Sylvania 黑光灯-蓝光，F 15 W/BLB-TB，和 Philips TLD 15 W 05）的光诱捕器进行手动采样。