Long-term monitoring of Azorean forest spiders

Sampling event
Latest version published by Universidade dos Açores on Mar 12, 2023 Universidade dos Açores
Publication date:
12 March 2023
Published by:
Universidade dos Açores
License:
CC-BY-NC 4.0

Download the latest version of this resource data as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A) or the resource metadata as EML or RTF:

Data as a DwC-A file download 495 records in English (137 KB) - Update frequency: unknown
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Metadata as an RTF file download in English (17 KB)

Description

The data we present are part of the long-term project SLAM (Long Term Ecological Study of the Impacts of Climate Change in the natural forest of Azores) that aims to understand the impact of biodiversity erosion drivers on Azorean native forests. Passive flight interception SLAM traps (Sea, Land and Air Malaise trap) were used to sample forest plots in both islands, with one trap being setup at each plot. A total of twenty 50m x 50m plots were sampled in two of the islands from the archipelago, 13 in Terceira and 7 in Pico. This publication contributes not only to a better knowledge of the arachnofauna present in native forests of Terceira and Pico, but also contributes to understand the patterns of abundance and diversity both seasonally and between 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 495 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)
495
Occurrence 
3025

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

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

Borges P A V, Costa R (2023): Long-term monitoring of Azorean forest spiders. v1.7. Universidade dos Açores. Dataset/Samplingevent. http://ipt.gbif.pt/ipt/resource?r=lter_slam_azores_spiders&v=1.7

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 Non Commercial (CC-BY-NC 4.0) License.

GBIF Registration

This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: 13745243-620e-4c04-9178-773e4bfc2072.  Universidade dos Açores publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by GBIF Portugal.

Keywords

Arthropoda; Araneae; Macaronesia; Azores; Terceira; Pico; 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
Ricardo Costa
  • Metadata Provider
  • Originator
Student
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
9700-124 Angra do Heroísmo
Azores
PT

Geographic Coverage

Pico and Terceira islands in Azorean archipelago (Portugal)

Bounding Coordinates South West [38.372, -28.592], North East [38.835, -26.993]

Taxonomic Coverage

Spiders (Arachnida; Araneae)

Order Araneae (Spiders)

Temporal Coverage

Start Date / End Date 2012-06-27 / 2020-01-13

Project Data

The data we present are part of the long-term project SLAM (Long Term Ecological Study of the Impacts of Climate Change in the natural forest of Azores) that aims to understand the impact of biodiversity erosion drivers on Azorean native forests. Passive flight interception SLAM traps (Sea, Land and Air Malaise trap) were used to sample forest plots in both islands, with one trap being setup at each plot. A total of twenty 50m x 50m plots were sampled in two of the islands from the archipelago, 13 in Terceira and 7 in Pico. This publication contributes not only to a better knowledge of the arachnofauna present in native forests of Terceira and Pico, but also contributes to understand the patterns of abundance and diversity both seasonally and between years

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: Adal Humberto Díaz Raya, Alejandra Ros-Prieto, David Rodilla Rivas, Daniel Ehrhart, Juan Ignacio Pitarch Peréz, Juan Manuel Taboada Alvarez, Helena Marugán Páramo, Laura Cáceres Sabater, Laura Gallardo, Lucas Lamelas-López, Marija Tomašić, Óscar García Contreras, Percy de Laminne de Bex, Ruben Murillo Garcia, Rui Carvalho, Rui Nunes, Sergio Fernandez, Sophie Wallon, and William Razey. 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) and 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 (2022-2023) The Natural Park of Terceira and Pico (Azores) provided the necessary authorization for sampling
Study Area Description Terceira (area: 400.6 km²; elevation: 1021 m a.s.l.) and Pico (area: 445 km²; elevation: 2350 m a.s.l) Islands are two islands in the central group of the Azores archipelago, located in the North Atlantic, roughly at 38°43'21''N 27°13'14''W and 38°27'30''N 28°19'22''W respectively. The climate is temperate oceanic, with regular and abundant rainfall, high levels of relative humidity and persistent winds, mainly during the winter and autumn seasons
Design Description 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. A monthly collection was also performed in Terra-Brava T18 on Terceira between January 2014 and June 2016

The personnel involved in the project:

Paulo A. V. Borges
Ricardo Costa
  • Author

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 between September 2013 and December 2018 in Pico, and between June 2012 and January 2020 in Terceira. A monthly collection was also performed in Terra-Brava T18 on Terceira, which happened between January 2014 and June 2016.

Study Extent A total of twenty 50m x 50m plots were sampled in two of the islands from the archipelago, 13 in Terceira and 7 in Pico. 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). In Terceira the plots are dominated by endemic vegetation such as Juniperus brevifolia, Erica azorica, Laurus azorica and Ilex azorica (see Borges et al, 2017 for more details). In Pico, the plots at lower elevation (0-400 m a.s.l.) are dominated by Erica azorica and Morella faya, but with some presence of Pittosporum undulatum. At higher elevations (600-1000 m a.s.l.) the dominant vegetation is composed by Laurus Azorica, Juniperus brevifolia and Ilex perado zorica.
Quality Control All sorted speciments 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 495 records and one data table extension also exists (occurrence), with 3025 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

Additional Metadata

So far this data was used in three publications: -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 -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. -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

Purpose This publication contributes not only to a better knowledge of the arachnofauna present in native forests of Terceira and Pico, but also contributes to understand the patterns of abundance and diversity both seasonally and between years.
Maintenance Description Every year.
Alternative Identifiers 13745243-620e-4c04-9178-773e4bfc2072
http://ipt.gbif.pt/ipt/resource?r=lter_slam_azores_spiders