Simultaneous automated insect monitoring across a remote tropical elevation gradient with Mothbox

Insect declines have been recorded in many parts of the world, however the vast majority of taxa and ecosystems, particularly in the tropics, remain poorly documented. Monitoring insects in the tropics is challenging due to their immense diversity, and the limited resources for research. It is therefore crucial to maximally leverage existing scientific capacity. In complement to DNA-based approaches, or as an alternative that bypasses some of their shortcomings, automated, passive insect monitoring devices are a new tool that can assess insect diversity with standardization and scalability. An additional benefit of insect monitoring devices is the ability to program simultaneous, autonomous monitoring in remote regions that would be very resource intensive to monitor with traditional methodologies. Here we describe the results of an insect monitoring expedition in Cerro Hoya National Park, Panama, which utilized 19 Mothboxes (automated light traps) deployed across an elevation gradient from 119 to 1534 m above sea level. Images were processed by the Mothbot computer vision system and manually validated at order level. For further validation, we sorted one order, -Coleoptera (beetles), to the level of morphospecies. Three days of sampling yielded 64,352 insect detections representing 17 orders. Within the Coleoptera, we detected 26 families and 142 species. Species richness and Shannon diversity decreased with increasing elevation, despite signs of anthropogenic disturbance at lower elevations. The number of detections (a proxy for activity patterns and abundance) also decreased with elevation except for the highest sampling points. Across all elevations, insect activity was greatest at the beginning of the night, with 40% of all insect detections occurring within an hour and a half of sunset, however trends differed between taxonomic groups. This study highlights the potential for automated insect monitors to enable large-scale insect monitoring in remote locations with small teams. Automated insect monitoring does not replace entomologists, but rather greatly expands their capacity for monitoring insect diversity at scale.