Abstract
The spider community of a beech forest on limestone was studied for one year using four sampling techniques: emergence traps, pitfall traps, soil samples, and arboreal eclectors. 87 spider species were recorded. Emergence traps and arboreal eclectors were particularly efficient in detecting spider species. Dominance identity (percentage similarity) was highest for catches from emergence traps and pitfall traps. Species recorded were assigned to various ecological groups. In terms of proportional abundance, representation of the ecological groups varied and appeared related to the sampling method used. Stratum type and type of prey capture strategy accounted for >60% of the variance in the catch results (canonical correspondence analysis). Proportional abundance of funnel-web spiders was much higher in pitfall trap catches (31.7%) than in any other method (1.0-11.6%).
Highlights
Various methods are available for sampling soil ani mals in terrestrial habitats (Dunger & Fiedler, 1989)
We evaluate the performance of four methods, i.e., emergence traps, pitfall traps, Kempson extraction of soil samples, and arboreal eclectors, which were concurrently employed during one study year
Catches from the arboreal eclectors were strongly dominated by a single species, Drapetisca socialis (Sundevall, 1832) (49.0%)
Summary
Various methods are available for sampling soil ani mals in terrestrial habitats (Dunger & Fiedler, 1989). Many of these techniques, such as pitfall traps, heat extraction of soil samples and emergence traps col lect spiders, with pitfall traps apparently being the method most widely employed in studies of spider communities. Some previous studies of beech forests on acid soils (Luzulo-Fagetuwi) have used more than one sampling method to describe spider communities (e.g., Albert, 1976, 1979; Dumpert & Platen, 1985; Platen, 1985), and some of these authors have commented on differences in the performance of different methods. Our approach in analysing the data, differs from ear lier comparisons in that we employ rarefaction methods to achieve better comparability of catch results
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