Lady Beetle Prey DNA Metabarcoding Data from Southern Wisconsin Landscapes, 2019-2021

Over 500 individual lady beetles were collected in 2019 and 2021 from agricultural landscapes in southern Wisconsin, USA. DNA metabarcoding was used to identify prey taxa in their guts, revealing 50 unique prey taxa from eight arthropod orders. The dataset explores relationships between prey richness, local habitat, and landscape complexity.

Use Cases

• Modeling the relationship between landcover diversity and predator dietary richness based on the described landscape metrics.
• Analyzing lady beetle foraging patterns across crop and non-crop habitats as described in the study.
• Training models to predict predator fitness or success in agricultural landscapes based on prey community data.
• Studying the composition of arthropod prey communities (e.g., flies, true bugs, thrips) in agricultural ecosystems.

Strengths

• Includes data from over 500 individual lady beetle specimens.
• Identifies 50 unique prey taxa across eight arthropod orders.
• Spatially and temporally explicit, with collections from southern Wisconsin in 2019 and 2021.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to the southern Wisconsin study area.

Provenance

Source

figshare

Collection Method

Field collection of lady beetles followed by whole-body DNA extraction, amplification with insectivore-optimized primers, and Illumina sequencing.

Time Range

2019, 2021

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-22 06:39:34; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Southern Wisconsin, USA