Insect collecting bias in Arizona with a preliminary checklist of the beetles from the Sand Tank Mountains.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The State of Arizona in the south-western United States supports a high diversity of insects. Digitised occurrence records, especially from preserved specimens in natural history collections, are an important and growing resource to understand biodiversity and biogeography. Underlying bias in how insects are collected and what that means for interpreting patterns of insect diversity is largely untested. To explore the effects of insect collecting bias in Arizona, the State was regionalised into specific areas. First, the entire State was divided into broad biogeographic areas by ecoregion. Second, the 81 tallest mountain ranges were mapped on to the State. The distribution of digitised records across these areas were then examined.A case study of surveying the beetles (I

SUBMITTER: Johnston MA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10323768 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature