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Northwestern University

Publication Date

Fall 2022

Program Name

Ecuador: Comparative Ecology and Conservation

Abstract

Canopy arthropods communities represent a disproportionate amount of global species richness (Stuntz 2001). Understanding arthropod composition and connectivity of lower epiphyte communities is important in understanding how canopy arthropods communities are formed and will respond to change (Floren and Linsenmair 1998). As such this study examined arthropod assemblages living within nonvascular epiphyte communities (epiphyte mats) living directly upon lower trunk regions of 24 trees in a tropical montane rain forest within the Santa Lucia Nature Reserve in Pichincha, Ecuador. Trees were assessed for size, epiphyte diversity, and epiphyte coverage before arthropod sampling within the epiphyte mats. Soil assessments were taken as well to compare community structure at the zone of intersection between the two habitats. No direct correlation was found between size, epiphyte diversity, or coverage on the diversity of arthropods within the mats, however this meant that population density and species richness density was very strongly negatively correlated with surface area. Arthropod communities differed significantly between soil samples and epiphyte samples, including in morphospecies present and proportional composition of arthropod orders.

Disciplines

Biodiversity | Botany | Ecology and Evolutionary Biology | Latin American Studies | Research Methods in Life Sciences | Zoology

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