Long-term monitoring of ground-dwelling arthropods in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area of central Arizona, USA (1998-2025)

The Central Arizona–Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research (CAP LTER) program has been monitoring ground-dwelling arthropods (e.g., insects, ararchnids) at locations throughout the greater Phoenix metropolitan area (GPMA) and surrounding Sonoran desert region since 1998. Monitoring locations span a diversity of habitat types, including mesic and xeric residential yards, commercial areas, agricultural fields, desert locations within the GPMA (desert remnant), and undisturbed desert locations. Organisms are collected quarterly using unbaited pitfall traps, typically ten per location but with some variation, exposed for approximately seventy-two hours. Organisms are identified to the lowest practical taxonomic level and enumerated. Many of the sampling locations established at the beginning of the monitoring project were relocated in 2001-2002 to overlap with the CAP LTER's Ecological Survey of Central Arizona (ESCA; formerly named Survey200) long-term monitoring sites, although within the same general landscape categories.