Meeting Abstract

P3-7   -   Differences in arthropod communities associated with urbanization VanDiest, IJ*; Moore, CA; Sewall, KB; Virginia Tech; Virginia Tech; Virginia Tech ivandiest@vt.edu

Arthropod populations have declined rapidly in the last century and a half. A decrease in arthropods is concerning as they often occupy the lower trophic levels of ecosystems, and higher trophic level organisms depend upon them as a food source. Arthropod decline is often the result of land use change, but we know relatively little about how urbanization influences arthropod communities and the predators that depend upon them. A first step toward understanding the effects of urbanization on trophic cascades is to compare arthropod communities between urban and rural habitats. Therefore, we completed arthropod vacuum sampling transects across three urban and three rural long-term study sites on and near Virginia Tech and compared biomass, abundance (total and by order), relative abundance of eight orders, and community structure based on trophic level. We found our rural sites had higher arthropod biomass and abundance across the eight orders we targeted when compared to urban sites. Additionally, rural areas had higher relative abundance of orders that contain higher trophic level species, while urban areas had higher relative abundance of orders that typically are at lower trophic levels. Our rural areas also had a higher Simpson’s diversity index compared to urban sites. These findings suggest that urbanization plays a significant role in structuring arthropod communities by reducing abundance, biomass, and diversity. Future work will study the consequences these findings have on individuals in higher trophic levels, namely avian predators.