Arthropod Monitoring Research Articles

Variation in arthropod communities in response to urbanization: Seven years of arthropod monitoring in a desert city

Continuous monitoring is essential to understand dynamics of biological communities in response to urbanization, and to provide guidance in landscape planning for conserving urban biodiversity. Arthropods serve this purpose because they are abundant and diverse in urban areas, and relatively easy to collect. Over seven years, in the Central Arizona Phoenix area, arthropod communities in three urban habitat categories were collected and compared to arthropods in natural desert using pitfall traps and non-parametric analyses. First, we tested for differences in arthropod composition, abundances, and diversity across habitats and years. Second, we examined how conclusions about arthropod diversity vary with level of taxonomic resolution. We found that arthropod community composition varied among the four habitats at all taxonomic levels tested. In particular, urban mesic habitats had generally lower diversity than natural desert habitats, although with some exceptions. In contrast, mesic habitats had higher arthropod abundance than all habitats, and fluctuations in abundance were completely independent from changes in precipitation. Taxonomic shortcuts gave overall good impressions of community differences, but finer taxonomic resolutions on certain groups of arthropods revealed distinctly different responses to urbanization (e.g., higher beetle and ant diversity in the urban habitats). Urban areas have great potential for arthropod diversity, but community composition and dynamics are notably different from natural habitats. Institutions, local governments and homeowners can make an impact in arthropod conservation by choice of landscaping, and we recommend that remnants of natural habitats within cities receive further attention in urban planning.

Arthropod monitoring in an automated pasta warehouse

Pest monitoring was carried out in an automated pasta warehouse. It is managed with a logistic process and can contain more than 30,000 pallets. Good pest monitoring is difficult in this environment particularly because of the height (more than 20 m). Several sticky traps were placed on the floor under the shelves to monitor the presence of arthropods. Monitoring was done twice, once in March and once in November, each time for two weeks. Results showed the presence of stored-product pests, but also the occurrence of other arthropods. Keywords : Pest monitoring, Stored-product pests, Automatic warehouse, Arthropods, Insects.

A framework for assessment and monitoring of arthropods in a lowland tropical forest.

By applying principles of adaptive management, and by using the valuable information that arthropods provide from assessment and monitoring programs, managers can identify and reduce possible impacts on biodiversity in development projects. In 1996, the Smithsonian Institution's Monitoring and Assessment of Biodiversity program worked together with Shell Prospecting and Development Peru to establish an adaptive management program to protect biodiversity in a natural gas exploration project in a Peruvian rainforest. In this paper, we outlined the conceptual steps involved in establishing an assessment and monitoring program for arthropods, including setting objectives, evaluating the results and making decisions. We also present the results of the assessment using some of groups of arthropods, and summarize the steps taken to identify appropriate groups for monitoring.

The effectiveness of exclusion barriers for polyphagous predatory arthropods in wheat

AbstractVertical polythene exclusion barriers combined with trapping out using pitfall traps have been used to create enclosures within which arthropod numbers can be manipulated. This technique has been primarily used to investigate the impact of ground-dwelling polyphagous arthropods on cereal pests. Arthropod numbers in a total of 42 enclosed areas were compared to adjacent unenclosed areas over three years in Hampshire, UK. A range of arthropod monitoring techniques was used, including pitfall traps, fenced pitfall traps and D-vac suction samples. The enclosures were effective in reducing most species of Carabidae, Linyphiidae and Lycosidae encountered and numbers in pitfall traps were reduced by an average of 74%, 62% and 77% respectively. Similar reductions in densities of these taxa were found. Staphylinidae were less effected with an average reduction of only 32% in pitfall traps, although Philonthus species were reduced by 82%. Results were compared to previous studies.