Diel periodicity of a terrestrial arthropod community: diversity, composition, and body size

Abstract

1. Activity patterns of arthropods lead to consistent changes in community composition in many ecosystems, but this daily turnover in community membership is poorly characterised. This study used passive collection methods of ground and air active arthropods, feeding guild assignment, and body size measurements to characterise changes in a terrestrial arthropod community between consecutive 4‐h time intervals.2. We found that arthropod communities are highly structured in time, with the time of sample collection significantly affecting family richness, relative abundance, abundance of feeding guilds, community dissimilarity, community turnover rates, and average body sizes within taxonomic orders.3. Community dissimilarity is periodic on two timescales, 12 and 24 h. Morning and evening communities were similar to each other and supported a unique assemblage that occurred during the transition from highly dissimilar night and day arthropod communities.4. The results offered support for previous findings that night‐active arthropods are generally larger than day‐active ones, with the pattern holding for some but not all orders.5. These findings demonstrate that species‐specific daily activity patterns influence community composition in a predictable manner, with characteristic repeating time communities within a single habitat.