All night long: Activity times of moths as observed at artificial light sources - data

Light pollution negatively affects nocturnal insects with positive phototactic behaviour. At the same time, researchers benefit from insects' positive phototaxis, as such behaviour makes it easy to sample nocturnal insects via light trapping. Getting insights into the peak activity time of nocturnal insects benefits both, conservation biologists who aim to find out, when it is important to reduce artificial light at night, and entomologists who want to get an adequate sample of nocturnal insects. We observed moth communities during five sampling nights in July and August 2022 in the Botanical Garden of Würzburg using a manual light trap. Starting at dusk and ending at dawn the next day, we noted down when exactly each moth arrived at the light trap.