MPM Lepidoptera of North America Network (LepNet)
Latest version
published on Jan 11, 2022
This resource has not been registered with GBIF
The Lepidoptera of North America Network (LepNet) comprises 27 core research collections that will digitize specimen records and integrate these with existing records. Digitized larval vial records with host plant data marks the first significant digitization of larvae in North American collections. This digitization effort will produce enough data to elevate up to 5,000 lepidopteran species to a “research ready” status suitable for complex, data-driven analyses. LepNet will produce high-quality images of exemplar species covering at least 55% of North American lepidopteran species. These images will enhance identifications and promote systematic, ecological, and global change research.
Data Records
The data in this occurrence resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 53,067 records.
This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.
Downloads
Download the latest version of this resource data as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A) or the resource metadata as EML or RTF:
| Data as a DwC-A file | download 53,067 records in English (4 MB) - Update frequency: irregular |
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| Metadata as an EML file | download in English (10 KB) |
| Metadata as an RTF file | download in English (7 KB) |
Versions
The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.
How to cite
Researchers should cite this work as follows:
Colby J, Sullivan Borkin S, Zaspel J (2022): MPM Lepidoptera of North America Network (LepNet). v1.3. No organisation. Dataset/Occurrence. https://ipt.mpm.edu/resource?r=lepnet&v=1.3
Rights
Researchers should respect the following rights statement:
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 License.
GBIF Registration
This resource has not been registered with GBIF
Keywords
Occurrence; Specimen
Contacts
Who created the resource:
Who can answer questions about the resource:
Who filled in the metadata:
Who else was associated with the resource:
Geographic Coverage
North America
| Bounding Coordinates | South West [21.943, -169.102], North East [83.36, -50.977] |
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Taxonomic Coverage
Lepidoptera
| Order | Lepidoptera (Butterflies and moths) |
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Temporal Coverage
| Start Date / End Date | 1882-01-01 / 2019-01-01 |
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Project Data
Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) are one of the most diverse groups of organisms on the planet: worldwide there are approximately 160,000 species, including around 14,300 species in North America. Moths and butterflies are a conspicuous component of terrestrial habitats and one of the most diverse groups of plant-feeding animals worldwide. This group insect includes species of great economic importance. Their juveniles feed on plants useful to humans, including grains, cotton, tobacco, and timber and shade trees. However, many of the adults are beneficial as pollinators and are icons of conservation as evidenced by Monarch butterflies. Given their economic importance and sheer beauty, butterflies and moths are one of the most abundant insect group in museum collections, but only a fraction of the approximately 15 million specimens in non-federal collections have had their specimen label information digitally recorded and accessible to researchers and educators. Of those specimens that have been digitized, fewer than 10% of the North American Lepidoptera species have sufficient, accessible occurrence data to make reliable predictions about habitat use, susceptibility to global change impacts, or other ecologically important interactions. This project will digitize and integrate existing, unconnected collections of lepidopterans to leverage the outstanding potential of this group of organisms for transformative research, training and outreach.
| Title | Lepidoptera of North America Network: Documenting Diversity in the Largest Clade of Herbivores |
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| Funding | NSF DBI-1601957 |
The personnel involved in the project:
Collection Data
| Collection Name | Milwaukee Public Museum Insect Collection |
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| Collection Identifier | ENT |
| Parent Collection Identifier | MPM |
Additional Metadata
| Alternative Identifiers | https://ipt.mpm.edu/resource?r=lepnet |
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