AMAZONIA CAMTRAP: A data set of mammal, bird, and reptile species recorded with camera traps in the Amazon forest.

The Amazon forest has the highest biodiversity on Earth. However, information on Amazonian vertebrate diversity is still deficient and scattered across the published, peer-reviewed, and gray literature and in unpublished raw data. Camera traps are an effective non-invasive method of surveying vertebrates, applicable to different scales of time and space. In this study, we organized and standardized camera trap records from different Amazon regions to compile the most extensive data set of inventories of mammal, bird, and reptile species ever assembled for the area. The complete data set comprises 154,123 records of 317 species (185 birds, 119 mammals, and 13 reptiles) gathered from surveys from the Amazonian portion of eight countries (Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela). The most frequently recorded species per taxa were: mammals: Cuniculus paca (11,907 records); birds: Pauxi tuberosa (3713 records); and reptiles: Tupinambis teguixin (716 records). The information detailed in this data paper opens up opportunities for new ecological studies at different spatial and temporal scales, allowing for a more accurate evaluation of the effects of habitat loss, fragmentation, climate change, and other human-mediated defaunation processes in one of the most important and threatened tropical environments in the world. The data set is not copyright restricted; please cite this data paper when using its data in publications and we also request that researchers and educators inform us of how they are using these data.

ATLANTIC ANTS: a data set of ants in Atlantic Forests of South America.

Ants, an ecologically successful and numerically dominant group of animals, play key ecological roles as soil engineers, predators, nutrient recyclers, and regulators of plant growth and reproduction in most terrestrial ecosystems. Further, ants are widely used as bioindicators of the ecological impact of land use. We gathered information of ant species in the Atlantic Forest of South America. The ATLANTIC ANTS data set, which is part of the ATLANTIC SERIES data papers, is a compilation of ant records from collections (18,713 records), unpublished data (29,651 records), and published sources (106,910 records; 1,059 references), including papers, theses, dissertations, and book chapters published from 1886 to 2020. In total, the data set contains 153,818 ant records from 7,636 study locations in the Atlantic Forest, representing 10 subfamilies, 99 genera, 1,114 ant species identified with updated taxonomic certainty, and 2,235 morphospecies codes. Our data set reflects the heterogeneity in ant records, which include ants sampled at the beginning of the taxonomic history of myrmecology (the 19th and 20th centuries) and more recent ant surveys designed to address specific questions in ecology and biology. The data set can be used by researchers to develop strategies to deal with different macroecological and region-wide questions, focusing on assemblages, species occurrences, and distribution patterns. Furthermore, the data can be used to assess the consequences of changes in land use in the Atlantic Forest on different ecological processes. No copyright restrictions apply to the use of this data set, but we request that authors cite this data paper when using these data in publications or teaching events.