Hay-bait traps are a useful tool for sampling of soil dwelling millipedes and centipedes.

Ivan H Tuf,Jan Šipoš,Slavomír Stašiov,Igor Dobroruka,Petra Hudcová,Lucie Hábová,Vojtěch Chmelík

doi:10.3897/zookeys.510.9020

Abstract

Some species of centipedes and millipedes inhabit upper soil layers exclusively and are not recorded by pitfall trapping. Because of their sensitivity to soil conditions, they can be sampled quantitatively for evaluation of soil conditions. Soil samples are heavy to transport and their processing is time consuming, and such sampling leads to disturbance of the soil surface which land-owners do not like. We evaluated the use of hay-bait traps to sample soil dwelling millipedes and centipedes. The effectiveness of this method was found to be similar to the effectiveness of soil sampling. Hay-bait traps installed for 8–10 weeks can substitute for direct soil sampling in ecological and inventory studies.

Highlights

Soil macrofauna is commonly used for monitoring or evaluation of sites
Soil sampling was the least efficient for sampling species (9 millipede and 7 centipede species) as well as individuals (36 and 100 individuals respectively), whereas pitfall traps and hay-bait traps were similar in their efficiency: 14–15 millipede and 9–10 centipede species; for number of individuals, see Table 1
For a complete knowledge of myriapod fauna, pitfall trapping needs to be combined with a method to collect soil dwelling species, e.g. soil sampling

Summary

Introduction

Soil macrofauna is commonly used for monitoring or evaluation of sites. Besides ground beetles (e.g. Hůrka et al 1996, Kotze et al 2011), spiders (e.g. Buchar and Růžička 2002, Maelfait et al 2004) or woodlice (e.g. Souty-Grosset et al 2005, Tuf and Tufová 2008), centipedes and millipedes are sampled frequently too (Tuf and Tufová 2008, Dunger and Voigtländer 2009). Soil dwelling animals can be sampled using litter/soil sieving, soil sampling or hand-collecting. Litter/soil sieving can reduce the weight of samples, as with hand-collecting, it is time consuming and attention-intensive. Soil sampling can cause damage to the site; pot-holes created by a soil corer can endanger people passing the site and can increase water erosion on slopes. These pot-holes are definitely not popular among land-owners of the sampled sites. For these reasons (severity of sampling, damage of ground), we have attempted to evaluate the effectiveness of sampling centipedes and millipedes using hay-bait traps. The aims of this research were 1) comparison of the efficiency of hay-bait trapping, soil sampling and pitfall trapping and 2) to find the optimal length of exposure of hay-bait traps for maximum efficiency

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion