Though natural history collections began as private demonstrations of wealth and knowledge, they are now places of public learning and depositories of biodiversity. Insects have been collected for their beauty and small size since the beginnings of natural history collections, making them ideal for studies of long-term collecting patterns.This thesis project characterizes collecting efforts focused on butterflies and moths within the United States, both at the institutional and national level. The A. J. Cook Arthropod Research Collection (ARC) at Michigan State University contains 96,618 databased Lepidoptera specimens, predominantly collected in the state of Michigan. The ARC has a long history of involvement by avocational collectors, both in terms of specimen donation and curation. Their contributions grew significantly in the 1950s. However, the number of specimens added annually by both professionals and non-professionals has decreased greatly since 1970. More than 1 million Lepidoptera specimens held in various US collections were also used to examine trends in Lepidoptera collecting nationally. Collecting has been inconsistent over time and markedly on the decline since the 1990s. States are not evenly represented in this dataset, mirroring the inconsistency seen in county representation among Michigan specimens in the ARC. This uneven distribution is at least partially associated with a lack of funding for databasing and other areas of curatorial effort for insect collections, in addition to a decrease in natural history education in K-12 and undergraduate curriculums.
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