Trap color and placement affects estimates of insect family-level abundance and diversity in a Nebraska salt marsh

Sampling programs to establish baseline ecosystem information (e.g., specie s abundance and diversity) often fail to consider the potential influence o f sampling techniques on results. Research on sampling economically importa nt insects has demonstrated the possible influences of trap color and trap placement on results, but few data have been collected from natural environ ments. Consequently, we examined the effects of color (yellow and blue) and placement (exposed and shaded by plants) of sticky traps on insect capture s and diversity estimates from a Nebraska inland salt marsh community. We i dentified 1913 specimens from 67 insect families collected during five trap ping dates in July 1996. More Cicindelidae were collected on exposed traps, and more Staphylinidae, Dolichopodidae, Cicadellidae, and Thripidae were c ollected on shaded traps. More Dolichopodidae were collected on yellow trap s, while more Syrphidae and Thripidae were collected on blue. Shannon and a lpha diversity measures were significantly higher for shaded traps than exp osed traps, but were not affected by trap color. Our results highlight the importance of characterizing sampling techniques when establishing diversit y estimates. These data provide the first complete accounting of community- level insect response to colored sticky traps and provide new information f or color preference of non-economic insect species.