The Swedish Malaise Trap Project (SMTP) is one of the most ambitious insect inventories ever attempted. The project was designed to target poorly known insect groups across a diverse range of habitats in Sweden. The field campaign involved the deployment of 73 Malaise traps at 55 localities across the country for three years (2003-2006). Over the past 15 years, the collected material has been hand sorted by trained technicians into over 300 taxonomic fractions suitable for expert attention. The resulting collection is a tremendous asset for entomologists around the world, especially as we now face a desperate need for baseline data to evaluate phenomena like insect decline and climate change. Here, we describe the history, organisation, methodology and logistics of the SMTP, focusing on the rationale for the decisions taken and the lessons learned along the way. The SMTP represents one of the early instances of community science applied to large-scale inventory work, with a heavy reliance on volunteers in both the field and the laboratory. We give estimates of both staff effort and volunteer effort involved. The project has been funded by the Swedish Taxonomy Initiative; in total, the inventory has cost less than 30 million SEK (approximately 3.1 million USD). Based on a subset of the samples, we characterise the size and taxonomic composition of the SMTP material. Several different extrapolation methods suggest that the material comprises around 20 million specimens in total. The material is dominated by Diptera (75% of the specimens) and Hymenoptera (15% of specimens). Amongst the Diptera, the dominant groups are Chironomidae (37% of specimens), Sciaridae (15%), Phoridae (13%), Cecidomyiidae (9.5%) and Mycetophilidae (9.4%). Within Hymenoptera, the major groups are Ichneumonidae (44% of specimens), Diaprioidea (19%), Braconidae (9.6%), Platygastroidea (8.5%) and Chalcidoidea (7.9%). The taxonomic composition varies with latitude and season. Several Diptera and Hymenoptera groups are more common in non-summer samples (collected from September to April) and in the North, while others show the opposite pattern. About 1% of the total material has been processed and identified by experts so far. This material represents over 4,000 species. One third of these had not been recorded from Sweden before and almost 700 of them are new to science. These results reveal the large amounts of taxonomic work still needed on Palaearctic insect faunas. Based on the SMTP experiences, we discuss aspects of planning and conducting future large-scale insect inventory projects using mainly traditional approaches in relation to more recent approaches that rely on molecular techniques.

中文翻译：

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瑞典不适陷阱项目：全国昆虫清查 15 年回顾。


瑞典不适诱捕计划（SMTP）是有史以来最雄心勃勃的昆虫清查计划之一。该项目旨在针对瑞典不同栖息地的鲜为人知的昆虫群体。该实地活动为期三年（2003-2006 年），在全国 55 个地点部署了 73 个不适陷阱。在过去的 15 年里，收集到的材料由训练有素的技术人员手工分类为 300 多个适合专家关注的分类部分。由此产生的收藏对世界各地的昆虫学家来说是一笔巨大的财富，特别是当我们现在迫切需要基线数据来评估昆虫衰退和气候变化等现象时。在这里，我们描述了 SMTP 的历史、组织、方法和后勤工作，重点关注所做出决策的基本原理以及在此过程中吸取的经验教训。 SMTP 代表了社区科学应用于大规模清查工作的早期实例之一，严重依赖现场和实验室的志愿者。我们对所涉及的员工努力和志愿者努力进行了估计。该项目由瑞典分类学倡议资助；总计，库存成本不到 3000 万瑞典克朗（约 310 万美元）。根据样本的子集，我们描述了 SMTP 材料的大小和分类组成。几种不同的外推方法表明，该材料总共包含约 2000 万个样本。该材料以双翅目（占标本的 75%）和膜翅目（占标本的 15%）为主。在双翅目中，优势类群是摇蚊科（占标本的37%）、蜘蛛科（15%）、蜘蛛科（13%）、蝉科（9.5%）和菌科（9.4%）。 在膜翅目中，主要类群是姬蜂科（占标本的 44%）、二甲总科（19%）、茧蜂科（9.6%）、扁腹总科（8.5%）和小蜂总科（7.9%）。分类组成随纬度和季节而变化。一些双翅目和膜翅目类群在非夏季样本（9 月至 4 月采集）和北方更为常见，而其他类群则表现出相反的模式。迄今为止，约1%的材料已被专家处理和鉴定。这种材料代表了 4,000 多个物种。其中三分之一是瑞典以前没有记录过的，其中近 700 个是科学界新发现的。这些结果揭示了古北界昆虫区系仍需要大量的分类学工作。根据 SMTP 经验，我们讨论了主要使用传统方法与依赖分子技术的最新方法规划和实施未来大规模昆虫清查项目的各个方面。