Measuring Arthropod Biodiversity

Abstract Tea is an economically important crop, consumed by billions of people. Despite the increasing market for pesticide-free products, the use of pesticide in tea is still high. In order to investigate whether intercropping promotes biological control organisms, Chamaecrista rotundifolia (Pers.) Greene, Indigofera hendecaphylla Jacq., Trifolium repens L., and Vigna sinensis (L.) were separately intercropped with free weeding as control in a tea plantation at Yangli, China. Arthropods were collected by taking sweep-net samples, and treatment effects on assemblages were investigated. The combined species richness of all arthropods and that of parasitoids was significantly increased in intercropped treatments while the species richness of herbivores and predators was only greater in C. rotundifolia and I. hendecaphylla intercropped treatments. Compared with control, the combined abundance of all arthropods, and that of herbivores was lower, while the abundance of parasitoids and its taxa was greater in all intercropped treatments. The abundance of predators and its taxa was greater only in tea plantations intercropped with C. rotundifolia or I. hendecaphylla. Of the herbivores, the abundance of Empoasca onukii Matsuda, Sternorrhyncha, Aleyrodidae, and Pentatomidae was greater in the areas intercropped with C. rotundifolia in comparison with the control, but the abundance of Thysanoptera and Geometridae caterpillars was lower. The recorded increase in the abundance of beneficial arthropods may explain the lower abundance of Thysanoptera or Geometridae caterpillars detected in the intercropped tea plantations. Our results indicate that intercropping has the potential to enhance arthropod biodiversity, and to provide an option for sustainable pest control in tea plantations.

Download Full-text

Soil tillage reduces arthropod biodiversity and has lag effects within organic and conventional crop rotations

Journal of Applied Entomology ◽

10.1111/jen.12603 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 143 (4) ◽

pp. 430-440 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Eli S. P. Patterson ◽

Roy A. Sanderson ◽

Michael D. Eyre

Keyword(s):

Crop Rotations ◽

Soil Tillage ◽

Lag Effects ◽

Arthropod Biodiversity

Download Full-text

DNA metabarcoding of insects and allies: an evaluation of primers and pipelines

Bulletin of Entomological Research ◽

10.1017/s0007485315000681 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 105 (6) ◽

pp. 717-727 ◽

Cited By ~ 83

Author(s):

G.-J. Brandon-Mong ◽

H.-M. Gan ◽

K.-W. Sing ◽

P.-S. Lee ◽

P.-E. Lim ◽

...

Keyword(s):

High Throughput ◽

High Throughput Sequencing ◽

Illumina Miseq ◽

Ease Of Use ◽

Malaise Trap ◽

Detection Rates ◽

Operational Taxonomic Units ◽

Arthropod Species ◽

Primer Sets ◽

Arthropod Biodiversity

AbstractMetabarcoding, the coupling of DNA-based species identification and high-throughput sequencing, offers enormous promise for arthropod biodiversity studies but factors such as cost, speed and ease-of-use of bioinformatic pipelines, crucial for making the leapt from demonstration studies to a real-world application, have not yet been adequately addressed. Here, four published and one newly designed primer sets were tested across a diverse set of 80 arthropod species, representing 11 orders, to establish optimal protocols for Illumina-based metabarcoding of tropical Malaise trap samples. Two primer sets which showed the highest amplification success with individual specimen polymerase chain reaction (PCR, 98%) were used for bulk PCR and Illumina MiSeq sequencing. The sequencing outputs were subjected to both manual and simple metagenomics quality control and filtering pipelines. We obtained acceptable detection rates after bulk PCR and high-throughput sequencing (80–90% of input species) but analyses were complicated by putative heteroplasmic sequences and contamination. The manual pipeline produced similar or better outputs to the simple metagenomics pipeline (1.4 compared with 0.5 expected:unexpected Operational Taxonomic Units). Our study suggests that metabarcoding is slowly becoming as cheap, fast and easy as conventional DNA barcoding, and that Malaise trap metabarcoding may soon fulfill its potential, providing a thermometer for biodiversity.

Download Full-text

The response of sward-dwelling arthropod communities to reduced grassland management intensity in pastures

Irish Journal of Agricultural and Food Research ◽

10.1515/ijafr-2015-0012 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 54 (2) ◽

pp. 107-120 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Alvin J. Helden ◽

Annette Anderson ◽

John Finn ◽

Gordon Purvis

Keyword(s):

Community Structure ◽

Grassland Management ◽

Taxon Richness ◽

Arthropod Communities ◽

Pitfall Trapping ◽

Management Intensity ◽

Arthropod Biodiversity ◽

Stocking Rates ◽

Univariate Analyses ◽

Suction Sampling

AbstractWe compared arthropod taxon richness, diversity and community structure of two replicated grassland husbandry experiments to investigate effects of reduced management intensity, as measured by nutrient input levels (390, 224 and 0 kg/ha per year N in one experiment, and 225 and 88 kg/ha per year N in another). Suction sampling was used to collect Araneae, Coleoptera, Hemiptera and Hymenoptera, with Araneae and Coleoptera also sampled with pitfall trapping. Univariate analyses found no significant differences in abundance and species density between treatments. However, with multivariate analysis, there were significant differences in arthropod community structure between treatments in both experiments.Reducing N input and associated stocking rates, as targeted by agri-environment schemes, can significantly alter arthropod communities but without increasing the number of species present. Other approaches that may be necessary to achieve substantial enhancement of sward arthropod biodiversity are suggested.

Download Full-text

Variations in terrestrial arthropod DNA metabarcoding methods recovers robust beta diversity but variable richness and site indicators

Scientific Reports ◽

10.1038/s41598-019-54532-0 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 9 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Teresita M. Porter ◽

Dave M. Morris ◽

Nathan Basiliko ◽

Mehrdad Hajibabaei ◽

Daniel Doucet ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Dna Extraction ◽

Beta Diversity ◽

Ecological Integrity ◽

Sequence Variants ◽

Key Indicator ◽

Pooled Dna ◽

Dna Metabarcoding ◽

Arthropod Fauna ◽

Reference Databases ◽

Arthropod Biodiversity

AbstractTerrestrial arthropod fauna have been suggested as a key indicator of ecological integrity in forest systems. Because phenotypic identification is expert-limited, a shift towards DNA metabarcoding could improve scalability and democratize the use of forest floor arthropods for biomonitoring applications. The objective of this study was to establish the level of field sampling and DNA extraction replication needed for arthropod biodiversity assessments from soil. Processing 15 individually collected soil samples recovered significantly higher median richness (488–614 sequence variants) than pooling the same number of samples (165–191 sequence variants) prior to DNA extraction, and we found no significant richness differences when using 1 or 3 pooled DNA extractions. Beta diversity was robust to changes in methodological regimes. Though our ability to identify taxa to species rank was limited, we were able to use arthropod COI metabarcodes from forest soil to assess richness, distinguish among sites, and recover site indicators based on unnamed exact sequence variants. Our results highlight the need to continue DNA barcoding local taxa during COI metabarcoding studies to help build reference databases. All together, these sampling considerations support the use of soil arthropod COI metabarcoding as a scalable method for biomonitoring.

Download Full-text

Response of the Arthropod Community to Soil Characteristics and Management in the Franciacorta Viticultural Area (Lombardy, Italy)

Agronomy ◽

10.3390/agronomy10050740 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (5) ◽

pp. 740

Author(s):

Isabella Ghiglieno ◽

Anna Simonetto ◽

Francesca Orlando ◽

Pierluigi Donna ◽

Marco Tonni ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Soil Moisture ◽

Soil Management ◽

Taxon Richness ◽

Arthropod Community ◽

Ecological Value ◽

Abiotic Conditions ◽

Living Species ◽

Vineyard Soils ◽

Arthropod Biodiversity ◽

Occurrence Patterns

Soil represents an important pool of biodiversity, hosting about a quarter of the living species on our planet. This soil richness has led to increasing interest in the structural and functional characteristics of its biodiversity. Studies of arthropod responses, in terms of abundance and taxon richness, have increased in relation to their ecological value as bioindicators of environmental change. This research was carried out over the 2014–2018 period with the aim to better understand arthropod taxa responses in vineyard soils in Franciacorta (Lombardy, Italy). To determine the biological composition in terms of arthropod taxa presence, one hundred soil samples were analysed. Environmental characteristics, such as chemical composition, soil moisture and temperature, and soil management were characterized for each soil sample. A total of 19 taxa were identified; the NMDS model analysis and the cluster analysis divided them into five groups according to their co-occurrence patterns. Each group was related to certain abiotic conditions; of these, soil moisture, temperature and organic matter were shown to be significant. A decision tree analysis showed that a longer period since conversion from conventional to organic farming lead to a higher arthropod biodiversity defined as a higher number of taxa.

Download Full-text