Army ants are keystone predators in the tropics and subtropics. During reproduction, males fly between colonies to mate with unmated, wingless queens. The males of most species are attracted to lights, and thus their presence and the timing of reproduction can be monitored using light traps. Previous studies examined the seasonality of army ant male reproduction and its relationship to climate factors at individual sites, but less is known about variation among sites. We examined army ant male flight seasonality at three sites: (1) La Selva Biological Station in Costa Rica, a site with weak temperature seasonality and moderate rainfall and day length seasonality, (2) Yasuní National Park, Ecuador, a site with no temperature or day length seasonality and very weak rainfall seasonlity, and (3) the state of Paraná in southern Brazil, a site with very strong temperature, rainfall, and day length seasonality. Army ants showed strong seasonality at the La Selva and Paraná sites, and very weak to no seasonality at the Yasuní site. At La Selva and Paraná, flight times varied among species, but were very predictable from year to year, which suggests day length or temperature as predictable cues rather than rainfall. Lack of seasonal cues near the equator may be a challenge for army ant species that need to synchronize colony reproduction, and thus may have conservation implications for minimum population sizes needed to ensure stable populations.

The data are sample x species abundance matrices. Abundance values are the number of individuals captured in a given light trap on a given night. There are three data files, one for each study site. The files are tab-delimited text files. The first row is a header with column names. The files and headers are as follows.

CR_abundance.csv (Costa Rica site)

CollectionCode: A code for a collection event, one trap-night, in the form L/xx/yyy. xx is a number from 07 to 18 that indicate the 12 sampling sites at La Selva Biological Station. Sample sites are in pairs, with odd-even pairs (e.g. site 7 and 8) being ground and canopy traps, respectively, in close proximity. yyy is a unique number for a sampling event.

DateCollected: the date of the evening the trap was set, with harvest the next morning; ANSI format (yyyymmdd).

Eciton_burchellii, etc.: the names of the species, in 17 columns.

EC_abundance.csv (Ecuador)

CollectionCode: A code for a collection event, representing a single trap-night or, in three cases, the pooled sample of four trap-nights.

DateCollected: the date of the evening the trap was set; ANSI format (yyyymmdd).

DateCollectedEnd: the date of the morning the trap was harvested; ANSI format (yyyymmdd).

Cheliomyrmex_andicola, etc.: the names of the species, in 16 columns.

PR_abundance.csv (Paraná)

Site: The name of the sampling site (8 sites)

DateCollected: the date of the evening the trap was set; ANSI format (yyyymmdd).

Eciton_burchellii, etc.: the names of the species, in 22 columns.

Tab-delimited text data.