Urbanization is without doubt one of the most intensive types of land-use change globally and a serious driver of biodiversity loss. Floor-dwelling arthropods are delicate indicators of environmental change and play essential roles in ecosystem functioning, but trait-based information on city arthropods stay restricted. We current right here an expert-curated guidelines and dataset of ground-dwelling arthropods sampled throughout 4 main Italian cities—Turin, Milan, Florence and Rome—following a standardized sampling protocol. The dataset contains 297 species from six main taxonomic teams (Coleoptera Carabidae, Coleoptera Tenebrionidae, Isopoda Oniscidea, Chilopoda, Araneae, and Pseudoscorpiones), for which we report presence and exercise density throughout cities and supply taxonomic, biogeographical, ecological, useful, morphological and genetic data. Ecological and useful traits datasets have been compiled from literature, professional data, and direct measurements, overlaying feeding habits, autoecology, habitat desire, dispersal means, circadian exercise, and physique measurement. To our data, that is the primary multi-taxon, trait-based dataset of city ground-dwelling arthropods for the Italian peninsula, offering a precious baseline for exploring taxonomic and useful variety throughout city environments and for advancing analysis on how urbanization shapes ecological and evolutionary processes in ground-dwelling arthropod communities.
Gardini, P., Piquet, A., Audisio, P., Piano, E., Degiovanni, A., Fattorini, S., Galimberti, A., Gardini, G., Milano, F., Mori, E., Pioltelli, E., Zapparoli, M., Isaia, M., & Sabatelli, S. (2026). Guidelines and trait dataset of ground-dwelling arthropods throughout city habitats in 4 main Italian cities. Scientific Knowledge. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-026-07300-5
