Abstract
Pitfall trapping is the standard technique to estimate activity and relative abundance of leaf litter arthropods. Pitfall trapping is not ideal for long‐term sampling because it is lethal, labor‐intensive, and may have taxonomic sampling biases. We test an alternative sampling method that can be left in place for several months at a time: verticallyplaced time‐lapse camera traps that have a short focal distance, enabling identification of small arthropods. We tested the effectiveness of these time‐lapse cameras, and quantified escape and avoidance behavior of arthropod orders encountering pitfall traps by placing cameras programed with a range of sampling intervals above pitfalls, to assess numerical, taxonomic, and body size differences in samples collected by the two methods. Cameras programed with 1‐ or 15‐min intervals recorded around twice as many arthropod taxa per day and a third more individuals per day than pitfall traps. Hymenoptera (ants), Embioptera (webspinners), and Blattodea (cockroaches) frequently escaped from pitfalls so were particularly under‐sampled by them. The time‐lapse camera method effectively samples litter arthropods to collect long‐term data. It is standardized, non‐lethal, and does not alter the substrate or require frequent visits.
Highlights
Pitfall trapping is the most commonly used method to estimate activity and relative abundance of ground-dwelling arthropods in ecological studies, and for monitoring (Spence & Niemela, 1994; Lovei & Sunderland, 1996)
The major aim of this study is to test the effectiveness of camera trapping versus pitfall trapping to sample litter arthropods, : 1. To determine whether there is a difference in the number of arthropod taxa sampled by pitfall and camera traps
Arthropods are at risk of capture in pitfall traps 24 hr a day, but can only be photographed by time-lapse camera traps for a fraction of this time. This did not decrease the effectiveness of the cameras, as we found that arthropods remained in the field of view for more than 30 min on average
Summary
Pitfall trapping is the most commonly used method to estimate activity and relative abundance of ground-dwelling arthropods in ecological studies, and for monitoring (Spence & Niemela, 1994; Lovei & Sunderland, 1996). Pitfall traps can by-catch small vertebrates, which means that their use. A large methodological issue with using pitfall traps is that they do not sample taxa at random from the leaf litter arthropod community (Luff, 1975; Baars, 1979; Topping & Luff, 1995). We present a new method to assess arthropod relative abundance, activity, and community composition using time-lapse camera traps. To determine whether there is a difference in the number of arthropod taxa sampled by pitfall and camera traps. We quantify captures using cameras programed with four recording intervals in Australian rainforest and sclerophyll (Eucalypt) forest between 2012 and 2015
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