Grasshopper species occurrence data in Mt. Kilimanjaro

Species occurence data of grasshopper in 60 plots on the southern slope of Mt. Kilimanjaro.

Orthoptera assemblages were recorded on all study sites by repeatedly walking for 1.5 h on parallel tracks (distance between transects ca. 1-1.5 m) and recording all sighted species. In forested study sites, trees and bushes in the understory vegetation were shaken for approximately 1.5 h. Insects falling from the vegetation were gathered on white canvas laid on the forest floor. Species which could not be identified during visits were collected and later identified. Study sites were also visited at night where Ensifera were registered acoustically. Additionally, two rounds of sweep net sampling were conducted on study sites to collect small species which may have remained undetected during transect walks. One round was conducted during the cool dry season (July to October) and one during the warm dry season (December to March). During each sweep netting round, 100 sweeps with a 30-cm diameter sweep were taken and all collected specimens were identified in the laboratory. Species accumulation curves for Caelifera and Ensifera on Mt. Kilimanjaro were published in , showing that more than 90% of the grasshopper, locust and bushcricket fauna for Mt. Kilimanjaro have been registered.

The KiLi project (2010-2018) is a German Science Foundation (DFG) funded research unit (DFG research unit FOR1246) that focuses on biodiversity and ecosystem processes along altitudinal and disturbance gradients on Mt. Kilimanjaro (Tanzania, Africa), capitalizing on its world-wide unique range of climatic and vegetation zones. The research unit comprises 2 central projects and 7 subprojects from various disciplines. On a total of 60 study sites in both natural and human-disturbed ecosystems biodiversity (e.g. plants, soil arthropods, ants, bees, frogs, lizards, bats, birds), related ecosystem processes (decomposition, seed dispersal, pollination, herbivory, predation), and biogeochemical processes and properties of ecosystems (climate, soil properties and nutrient status, regulation of water and carbon fluxes, trace gas emissions, primary productivity, functional diversity) are analyzed.