Inventorying and Estimating Subcanopy Spider Diversity Using Semiquantitative Sampling Methods in an Afromontane Forest

By Line L. Sørensen, Jonathan Coddington, N. Scharff. 2002

204 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract We investigated the effect of plot-based and unrestricted (plot-less) sampling on an inventory of a megadiverse taxon, spiders, in an Afrotropical forest for the purpose of species richness estimates. We also investigated the efficiency of human-based sampling methods and the effect of allocation of sampling effort to different sampling methods to cover as many microhabitats as possible. In the 10-d sampling period in the montane forest of the Uzungwa Scarp Forest Reserve in Tanzania, eight collectors sampled spiders for 350 h and 800 pitfall “trap-days.” Two hundred hours of sampling were restricted to a 1-ha plot and 150 h of sampling took place outside the plot. The sampling team included both experienced and inexperienced collectors using five different hand collecting methods during day and night sampling periods. Sampling yielded 9,096 adult spiders representing 170 species in total. Number of species and adult spiders per sample and overall species composition depended mainly on the sampling methods used and time of day. Whether the sampling took place within or at random outside the plot did not affect species composition or number of species per sample. Collector experience did affect the number of species collected per hour and thereby overall species composition of the sample but was less important than sampling methods used and time of day.

Subfields: Ecological Modeling, Ecology, Insect Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/be52f7507b1830092d55149812cb4d95c6573f5c

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Citations in the corpus

Rapid biodiversity assessment of spiders (Araneae) using semi‐quantitative sampling: a case study in a Mediterranean forest (2008, methodology): “…a sampling strategy for spiders that has subsequently been tested and refined in a number of spider studies, mainly in tropical and temperate forests (Coddington et al ., 1991, 1996; Silva & Coddington, 1996; Dobyns, 1997; Toti et al ., 2000; Sørensen et al ., 2002; Scharff et al ., 2003).”
Seasonality of spiders (Araneae) in Mediterranean ecosystems and its implications in the optimum sampling period (2007, methodology): “Such methods are suitable for capturing a large number of species and simultaneously a large number of specimens with replicate samples ( Coddington et al. , 1996; Dobyns, 1997; Toti et al. , 2000; Sørensen et al. , 2002; Scharff et al. , 2003 ).”
Standardization and optimization of arthropod inventories—the case of Iberian spiders (2009, methodology): “Sampling spiders in tropical (e.g., Coddington et al. 1991; Sørensen et al. 2002) or temperate forests (e.g., Coddington et al. 1996; Scharff et al. 2003) probably requires different methods and certainly different sample proportions.”
Determinants of local spider (Araneidae and Thomisidae) species richness on a regional scale: climate and altitude vs. habitat structure (2007, background): “Juveniles are usually discarded in spider biodiversity studies (e.g. Jerardino et al. , 1991; Toti et al. , 2000; Sørensen et al. , 2002 ) because of the difficulty in identification ( Coddington et al. , 1996; Dobyns, 1997 ).”
Assessing spider species richness and composition in Mediterranean cork oak forests (2008, methodology): “Species richness is often found to be greater during the night (Green, 1999; Sørensen et al., 2002), but this seems to happen mainly in (sub-) tropical forests, and it is less likely to occur in temperate forests (Coddington et al.”