Long-term monitoring of Azorean forest arthropods

Sampling event
Version 1.0 published by Universidade dos Açores on Nov 11, 2022 Universidade dos Açores
Publication date:
11 November 2022
Published by:
Universidade dos Açores
License:
CC-BY 4.0

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Description

Since 2012 we are conducting in Azorean Islands (Portugal) native and exotic forests a long-term monitoring study named SLAM - Long Term Ecological Study of the Impacts of Climate Change in the natural forest of Azores. This long-term monitoring study is monitoring arthropods (Arthropoda), aiming to understand the impact of biodiversity erosion drivers in Azorean native forests arthropod distribution, abundance and diversity. The current dataset represents arthropods that were recorded using a total of 42 passive SLAM traps (Sea, Land and Air Malaise) deployed inside native and exotic forest fragments in seven Azorean Islands (Flores, Faial, Pico, Graciosa, Terceira São Miguel and Santa Maria). This manuscript is the fifth data-paper contribution based on data from this long-term project.

We provide data of terrestrial arthropods belonging to Arachnida (excluding Acari), Diplopoda, Chilopoda and Insecta classes (excluding Collembola, Diptera, Hymenoptera and Lepidoptera) from seven Azorean Islands during the 2012-2021 period. Data from spiders (Araneae) from the Pico and Terceira Islands is not included in this publication since this data was already published elsewhere (Costa and Borges 2021; Lhoumeau et al. 2022). We collected a total of 178 972 specimens, of which 171 530 (95.8%) were identified at species or subspecies level. Among these identified specimens, 106 350 (62%) were adults. For Araneae and some Hemiptera species, juveniles are also included in the data presented in this paper, since the low diversity in the Azores allows a relatively precise species-level identification of this life-stage. We recorded a total of 316 species and subspecies, belonging to 25 orders, 106 families and 260 genera. The ten most abundant species are composed mostly of endemic or native non-endemic species and only one exotic species (Ommatoiulus moreleti (Lucas, 1860)). They include 107 330 individuals (60%) of all sampled specimens and can be considered as the dominant species in the Azorean native forests for the target studied taxa. The Hemiptera order was the most abundant taxa, with 90 127 (50,4%) specimens. The Coleoptera order was the most diverse taxa with 30 (28,3%) family sampled. We registered 72 new species records (two for Flores, eight for Faial, 24 for Graciosa, 23 for Pico, eight for Terceira, three for São Miguel and four for Santa-Maria). None of them are new for the Azores archipelago. Most of the new records are introduced species, however abundance of such species is still low on the studied islands. This publication contributes to increase the baseline information for future long-term comparisons of the arthropods of the studied sites and the knowledge of the arthropod fauna of the native forests of the Azores, in terms of species abundance, distribution and diversity throughout seasons and years

Data Records

The data in this sampling event resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 893 records.

1 extension data tables also exist. An extension record supplies extra information about a core record. The number of records in each extension data table is illustrated below.

Event (core)
893
Occurrence 
14924

This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.

Versions

The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.

How to cite

Please be aware, this is an old version of the dataset.  Researchers should cite this work as follows:

Borges P A V, Lhoumeau S (2022): Long-term monitoring of Azorean forest arthropods. v1.0. Universidade dos Açores. Dataset/Samplingevent. http://ipt.gbif.pt/ipt/resource?r=arthropods_slam_azores&v=1.0

Rights

Researchers should respect the following rights statement:

The publisher and rights holder of this work is Universidade dos Açores. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY 4.0) License.

GBIF Registration

This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: 079c8358-0b4f-479b-97dd-1f2f775256f9.  Universidade dos Açores publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by GBIF Portugal.

Keywords

Arthropoda; Azores; Laurisilva forest; Long-term sampling; SLAM Trap; Sampling event

Contacts

Paulo A. V. Borges
  • Content Provider
  • Metadata Provider
  • Originator
  • Point Of Contact
Aggregate Professor
Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes (cE3c)/Azorean Biodiversity Group, CHANGE – Global Change and Sustainability Institute
Faculty of Agricultural Sciences and Environment, University of the Azores, Rua Capitão João d´Ávila, Pico da Urze
9700-042 Angra do Heroísmo
Azores
PT
+351968933212
Sébastien Lhoumeau
  • Originator
Researcher
Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes (cE3c)/Azorean Biodiversity Group, CHANGE – Global Change and Sustainability Institute
Faculty of Agricultural Sciences and Environment, University of the Azores, Rua Capitão João d´Ávila, Pico da Urze
9700-042 Angra do Heroísmo
Azores
PT
+351968933212

Geographic Coverage

Flores, Faial, Pico, Graciosa, Terceira São Miguel and Santa Maria (Azores)

Bounding Coordinates South West [36.844, -31.333], North East [39.69, -24.785]

Taxonomic Coverage

Arachnida (excluding Acari), Diplopoda, Chilopoda and Insecta classes (excluding Collembola, Diptera, Hymenoptera and Lepidoptera

Phylum Arthropoda (Arthropods)

Temporal Coverage

Start Date / End Date 2012-06-13 / 2022-06-16

Project Data

Since 2012 we are conducting in Azorean Islands (Portugal) native and exotic forests a long-term monitoring study named SLAM - Long Term Ecological Study of the Impacts of Climate Change in the natural forest of Azores. This long-term monitoring study is monitoring arthropods (Arthropoda), aiming to understand the impact of biodiversity erosion drivers in Azorean native forests arthropod distribution, abundance and diversity. The current dataset represents arthropods that were recorded using a total of 42 passive SLAM traps (Sea, Land and Air Malaise) deployed inside native and exotic forest fragments in seven Azorean Islands (Flores, Faial, Pico, Graciosa, Terceira São Miguel and Santa Maria). This manuscript is the fifth data-paper contribution based on data from this long-term project

Title SLAM - Long Term Ecological Study of the Impacts of Climate Change in the natural forest of Azores
Identifier SLAM - Arthropods
Funding A large number of students financed by the EU Programs ERASMUS and EURODYSSÉE sorted the samples prior to species assignment by one of us (PB), and we are grateful to all of them: For the period 2012-2019 – Adal Humberto Díaz Raya, Adrian Fernandez Marinez, Alba Arteaga, Alejandra Ros Prieto, Castore De Salvador, David Rodilla Rivas, Daniel Ehrhart, Elisa Tarantino, Gea Ghisolfi, Helena Marugán Páramo, Joel Martin Ay, Jonne Bonnet, Jose Vicente Pérez Santa Rita, Juan Ignacio Pitarch Peréz, Juan Manuel Taboada Alvarez, Laura Cáceres Sabater, Laura Gallardo, Magí Ramon Martorell, Maria Simitakou, Marija Tomašić, Marta Calera Sierra, Merili Martverk, Óscar García Contreras, Oscar GomezNovillo, Percy de Laminne de Bex, Reinier Vries, Riccardo Negroni, Ruben Murillo Garcia, Rui Carvalho, Rui Nunes, Sébastien Lhoumeau, Sergio Fernandez, Sophie Wallon and William Razey For the period 2019-2021 – Abrão Leite, Adrian Fernandez Marinez, Emanuela Cosma, Jonne Bonnet, Joel Martin Aye, Loïc Navarro, Magí Ramon Martorell, Marco Canino, Natalia Fierro Frerot, Sébastien Lhoumeau, Valentin Moley This manuscript was also partly financed by Portuguese FCT-NETBIOME –ISLANDBIODIV grant 0003/2011 (between 2012 and 2015), Portuguese National Funds, through FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, within the project UID/BIA/00329/2013-2020, the project from Direcção Regional do Ambiente - PRIBES (LIFE17 IPE/PT/000010) (2019),  Direcção Regional do Ambiente – LIFE-BETTLES (LIFE18 NAT_PT_000864) (2020); AZORESBIOPORTAL –PORBIOTA (ACORES-01-0145-FEDER-000072) (2019); Portal da Biodiversidade dos Açores (2022-2023) - PO Azores Project - M1.1.A/INFRAEST CIENT/001/2022 (2022); FCT-UIDB/00329/2020-2024 (Thematic Line 1 – integrated ecological assessment of environmental change on biodiversity) (2019-2022); Science and Technology Foundation (FCT) - MACRISK-Trait-based prediction of extinction risk and invasiveness for Northern Macaronesian arthropods (FCT-PTDC/BIA-CBI/0625/2021) (2022) The Natural Parks of all islands provided the necessary authorization for sampling
Study Area Description The Azores are an isolated archipelago (38°43′49″N, 27°19′10″W), situated in the mid-Atlantic Ocean comprising nine volcanic Islands spread over 500 km in a W/NW–E/SE direction. During this project, seven Islands (Flores, Faial, Graciosa, Pico Terceira, São Miguel and Santa Maria) were surveyed within the SLAM Project. The sampling plots are mostly dominated by endemic vegetation like Juniperus brevifolia, Erica azorica, Laurus azorica and Ilex azorica, but with some evidence of invasive species like Pittosporum undulatum, Hedychium gardnerianum. For all islands, the dominant vegetation in higher elevations is the most preserved.
Design Description We sampled in the Azorean Islands of Flores, Faial, Pico, Graciosa, Terceira São Miguel and Santa Maria, four times per year (around the 15th March (winter sample), 15th June (spring sample), 15th September (summer sample) and 15th December (autumn sample)

The personnel involved in the project:

Paulo A. V. Borges
Sébastien Lhoumeau
  • Content Provider

Sampling Methods

Passive flight interception SLAM traps (Sea, Land and Air Malaise trap) were used to sample the plots in both islands, with one trap being setup at each plot, each one being 110 x 110 x 110 cm. In this type of trap the trapped arthropods crawl up the mesh and then fall inside the sampling recipient (Borges et al, 2017). Each one is filled with propylene glycol (pure 1,2-PROPANODIOL) to kill the captured arthropods and conserve the sample between collections, enabling also the preservation of DNA for future genetic analysis. Although this protocol was developed to sample flying arthropods, by working as an extension of the tree, non-flying species such as spiders can also crawl into the trap (Borges et al, 2017), enhancing the range of groups that can be sampled by this technique. Because of this, previous studies have used these traps to analyse diversity and abundance changes in the arthropod communities in Azores pristine forest sites (Matthews et al, 2019, Borges et al, 2020). The traps samples were collected every 3 months in the studeid sites.

Study Extent A total of forty-two 50m x 50m plots were sampled in seven of the islands from the archipelago (Flores, Faial, Pico, Graciosa, Terceira São Miguel and Santa Maria). The areas where these plots were set constitute some of the most well-preserved wet forests in these islands, having small human disturbance (Borges et al, 2017). The native forest is dominated by endemic vegetation such as Juniperus brevifolia, Erica azorica, Laurus azorica and Ilex azorica (see Borges et al, 2017 for more details). Some plots are located in mixed forest, with some exotic trees.
Quality Control All sorted specimens were identified by a taxonomical expert.

Method step description:

  1. The data has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardised format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table (events) contains 893 records and one data table extension also exists (occurrence), with 14924 records. The extension supplies extra information about the core record.

Collection Data

Collection Name Entomoteca Dalberto Teixeira Pombo (DTP)
Collection Identifier DTP
Specimen preservation methods Alcohol

Bibliographic Citations

  1. Borges, P.A.V., Pimentel, R., Carvalho, R., Nunes, R., Wallon, S. & Ros Prieto, A. (2017). Seasonal dynamics of arthropods in the humid native forests of Terceira Island (Azores). Arquipelago Life and Marine Sciences, 34: 105-122.
  2. Matthews, T., Sadler, J.P., Carvalho, R., Nunes, R. & Borges, P.A.V. (2019). Differential turnover rates and temporal beta-diversity patterns of native and non-native arthropod species in a fragmented native forest landscape. Ecography, 42: 45–54 DOI: 10.1111/ecog.03812
  3. Borges, P.A.V., Rigal, F., Ros-Prieto, A. & Cardoso, P. (2020). Increase of insular exotic arthropod diversity is a fundamental dimension of the current biodiversity crisis. Insect Conservation and Diversity, 13: 508-518 DOI: 10.1111/icad.12431
  4. Costa, R. & Borges, P.A.V. (2021). “SLAM Project - Long Term Ecological Study of the Impacts of Climate Change in the Natural Forest of Azores: I - the Spiders from Native Forests of Terceira and Pico Islands (2012-2019).” Biodiversity Data Journal 9 (September): e69924 10.3897/BDJ.9.e69924

Additional Metadata