Insect species selection and data acquisition
We focused on the five most speciose orders with highly distinct adult
forms: Coleoptera (beetles), Diptera (flies), Hymenoptera (bees, wasps,
ants, and sawflies), Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths), and
Trichoptera (caddisflies). We also include the order Odonata
(dragonflies and damselflies) and Cicadidae (cicadas), for which nymphs
or larvae are visually distinct from adults and occupy
infrequently-surveyed habitats (aquatic and subterranean, respectively).
A detailed explanation on the species selection protocol can be found in
the Supporting Information.
Within these seven higher-level taxonomic groups, we used overall record
counts in iNaturalist to select an initial set of candidate species. We
limited searching to research-grade observations (verifiable
observations with at least two independent species identifications) and
included all insect species in focal groups that had at least 1,000
observations within Canada, the United States, and Mexico as of April 8,
2020. Four-hundred and seventy insect species met our search criteria,
representing all our focal higher taxonomic groups except for
Trichoptera.
We then further filtered to species primarily observed as adults and
maintained those for which at least 99.5% of annotated observations had
the life stage annotated as “Adult” by iNaturalist users. Because
Lepidoptera are commonly observed as juveniles, we only kept records
annotated as adults in our final dataset. Using our final species list,
we collected data from GBIF and iDigBio, which aggregate iNaturalist
records along with other biological collections. In total, we collected
records for 435 species across six insect orders. We limited the
temporal scope of our study to the recent years of 2015-2019.