Do camera light traps for moths provide similar data as conventional funnel light traps?

The dataset contains moth recordings of field surveys conducted from April to September 2023 in a forest and open land habitat in north-west Germany. Moths were sampled using traditional funnel traps (FLT) and a new camera light trap (CLT). The camera light trap was operated through the whole season (196 nights), while funnel trapping events took place at 12 selected nights through the flight season. Cameras (Sony Alpha 7II) took images of a screen (24 cm x 36 cm) every 2 min. Funnel light traps were checked the next morning. All traps were operated between dusk and dawn and used a LepiLED Mini switch from Insects & Light, Jena, Germany. Moths were determined using Steiner et al. (2014): Die Nachtfalter Deutschlands (ISBN 9783000438622). This study is the first systematically comparison of both methods. Overall, CLTs performed very well. Results from CLTs differ to a certain extent from conventional trapping methods because they seem to perform worse in groups with highly active species and perform better in calmer groups like geometrid moths. CLTs are promising devices for insect monitoring since they deliver data with high resolution in time, space and taxonomy. We provide: Raw data of each individual moth sampled in the surveys, a compiled species list including information on German trivial names, status of endangerment as well as the species number of the refence literature and a table of all species photographed with species name and date/time.