Species inventory and morphological measurements of spiders (Arachnida, Araneae) and ants (Insecta, Hymenoptera, Formicidae) collected in northern Ghana

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Background: Agricultural expansion, a leading driver of biodiversity loss, has widespread effects on ecosystem services, particularly in tropical regions. In West Africa, the impact of intensified agriculture on local biodiversity - especially predator and decomposer species like spiders and ants - is understudied. This study aims to provide a checklist of terrestrial spiders and ants associated with savannahs and mango orchards in northern Ghana thus creating a baseline for further ecological studies on the community composition of these groups. New information: In this data paper, we publish the baseline checklist and morphological measurements of spiders (Araneae) and ants (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) associated with forest savannahs and mango orchards located in northern Ghana. In total, we collected 64 species (28 unidentified morphospecies) of spiders and 64 species (24 unidentified morphospecies) of ants. Of these, almost all spider species and nine ant species were new records for Ghana, while many of the morphospecies could potentially be species new to science. In addition, we publish standardised morphological measurements of each species for potential functional diversity studies in the future.