[Leps-l] moth sampling

[Tony Thomas]

Hi All,

Tidying up my computer's hard drive I came across a graph from 
my  moth diversity work in Fundy National Park in New Brunswick, 
Canada; many years ago.
Out of 401 species of macros with 15,851 specimens, about half 
(approx. 190 species) had 5 or less individual moths
The number of species with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 moths was 75, 40, 35, 20, 20 
respectively. At the other extreme one species had 1,253 individuals.
I believe this demonstrates that for the best inventory of species 
one should collect every night if one wishes to collect the very rare 
species (i.e., those with only 1 individual that comes to a trap).
Of course my data doesn't rule out the possibility that if  traps are 
operated just once every 5 days the singleton that would have been 
caught on day 2, when traps are operated nightly,  may be caught on day 5.