Where are all the moths? A 45-year dataset reveals major changes in South Island moth diversity

Abstract

There are few long-term monitoring datasets in New Zealand, especially for invertebrates, and yet long-term monitoring is essential for understanding how human activities are affecting the natural world. The longest monitoring dataset for invertebrates in New Zealand is Brian Patrick's annotated lists of all moth species visiting his light traps. Brian began these lists when he was a teenager in Invercargill and continues them now 45 years later. These observations span a remarkably wide range of sites throughout the South Island and include many sites visited numerous times. They offer us an unparalleled window into ecological change in New Zealand invertebrates. Assisted by the Brian Mason Scientific and Technical Trust, we have been manually digitising all of Brian's hand written notebooks to open this dataset for analysis. Preliminary analysis is already showing notable declines in endemic moth diversity at lowland sites, especially in rural and urban habitats.