D3541: Pitfall trap bycatch data in the southwestern United States shines a light on the terrestrial arthropod biodiversity in arid and semiarid communities

Pitfall traps are one of many useful collecting and surveying methods for gaining a better picture of arthropod biodiversity. Given that possessing an initial understanding of biodiversity is a prerequisite for monitoring changes in said biodiversity, continued arthropod surveying efforts across all ecosystems are essential. We set up pitfall traps as part of a larger ant foraging project in two locations in southern New Mexico: one north of Las Cruces in Doña Ana County (Chihuahuan Desert) and one near Corona in Lincoln County (grassland/juniper). Each location ran 35 traps for 24 hours which were repeated four times in different months. After separating Formicidae from the traps, the remaining data were sorted and identified at least to family. At total of 57 families from nine hexapod orders were collected from the Doña Ana County traps and 76 families from nine hexapod orders were collected from the Lincoln County traps. The data from these traps shows the importance of utilizing bycatch and will help to provide a better understanding of the terrestrial and low aerial arthropod biodiversity in both the Chihuahuan Desert and Southwestern Tableland ecoregions.