A multi-year (2007-2025) moth community dataset across the islands of southern South Korea

Island ecosystems provide natural laboratories for understanding patterns of biodiversity, species turnover and the ecological processes shaping community assembly. Moths (Lepidoptera) are amongst the most diverse insect groups and play important ecological roles as herbivores, pollinators and prey for higher trophic levels, making them valuable indicators of environmental change. Although numerous ecological studies have examined moth diversity in continental forests, standardised long-term datasets spanning multiple islands remain scarce, particularly in East Asia. To facilitate studies of island biogeography, temporal community dynamics and biodiversity conservation, we compiled a standardised dataset of moth community composition from islands along the southern coast of the Korean Peninsula.

This dataset contains standardised light-trap survey records collected from 332 sites on 30 islands between 2007 and 2025, encompassing 1,179 moth species from 19 families and 30,442 individuals. Most islands are located within two marine national parks, providing broad coverage across gradients of island area, isolation and elevation. The dataset includes site-level species abundance matrices, island-level environmental variables (area, distance from the mainland and maximum elevation), survey metadata and taxonomic information for all recorded species. Each island was surveyed in one to four discrete years, enabling analyses of both spatial variation amongst islands and temporal variation within islands. This dataset provides a valuable resource for studies of island biogeography, community assembly, biodiversity monitoring, environmental change and conservation prioritisation of insular insect communities.