Response of ant and terrestrial spider assemblages to pastoral and military land use, and to landscape position, in a tropical savanna woodland in northern Australia

Abstract

This study aims primarily to assess the response of two invertebrate groups to the effects of pastoralism and military training, at one site in the tropical savanna of north-eastern Queensland. The richness and species composition of ants and terrestrial spiders were examined at two contrasting times of year across three land use treatments (pastoralism, military training and undisturbed) and four landscape positions (upper slope to riparian). Ant species richness was least in the grazed sites, and a high proportion of the ant species recorded varied significantly in frequency between the grazed and the two ungrazed land uses. This variation was generally greater than that associated with landscape position. Although variation in the richness of spiders was significantly related to land-use type, this effect was less pronounced than for ants, was less marked than variation associated with landscape position and was confounded by a strong interaction between land use and landscape position. Quadratscale variation in the composition of spider assemblages was influenced most by season of sampling. For both spiders and ants, there were few differences in richness or species composition between undisturbed land and that managed for military use.

The interactive effects of livestock exclusion and mammalian pest control on the restoration of invertebrate communities in small forest remnants

“…In terms of the livestock exclusion treatment, it is surprising that there have been only anecdotal studies investigating the effects of livestock trampling and browsing on invertebrate communities in New Zealand forests ; but see Scrimgeour & Kendall 2003;Doledec et al 2006;Schon et al 2008 for studies of New Zealand grassland ecosystems, and abensperg- Traun et al 1996;Bromham et al 1999;Woinarski et al 2002 for a range of similar studies in forest ecosystems elsewhere). Furthermore, we are aware of no studies that that have explicitly tested the effects of livestock exclusion on invertebrate communities in native forest remnants in New Zealand.…”

Lichen-dominated soil crusts as arthropod habitat in warm deserts

“…In the ephemeral stream channel, traps were also placed at least 2 m from shrubs, as the intention was not to sample the small vegetation patches as island habitats for invertebrates, but to rather sample stream channels as a habitat characterized by patches of higher plant cover. Following studies by Abensperg-Traun and Steven (1995) and Woinarski et al (2002), a large trap diameter was used (18 cm) in hopes of increasing the likelihood of trapping a large range of arthropods, including rare and larger species. Traps were steep-sided and 30 cm deep to prevent capture losses, and the bottom of each trap was covered in +2 cm of sand to provide some protection to captured specimens from predation.…”

“…Here, pitfall trapping followed standard methods (Abensperg-Traun and Steven, 1995;Weeks and McIntyre, 1997;Whitehouse et al, 2002;Woinarski et al, 2002) placing five traps in each site in a randomly chosen location. Traps were placed 5 m apart to ensure independent sampling within each trap.…”

Role of plant functional traits in determining vegetation composition of abandoned grazing land in north‐eastern Victoria, Australia

“…Grazing reduces ant diversity in Australia and can potentially limit seed dispersal, however, ant communities can recover rapidly once grazing is removed (Woinarski et al 2002). For severely degraded Australian tropical woodland, limited dispersal of seed by ants was due to a low diversity of ant species (Anderson & Morrison 1998).…”