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Abstract: Semi-quantitative sampling protocols have been proposed as the most cost-effective and comprehensive way of sampling spiders in many regions of the world. In the present study, a balanced sampling design with the same number of samples per day, time of day, collector and method, was used to assess the species richness and composition of a Quercus suber woodland in Central Portugal. A total of 475 samples, each corresponding to one hour of effective fieldwork, were taken. One hundred sixty eight species were captured, of which 150 were recorded inside a delimited one-hectare plot; this number corresponds to around 90% of the estimated species richness. We tested the effect of applying different sampling approaches (sampling day, time of day, collector experience and method) on species richness, abundance, and composition. Most sampling approaches were found to influence the species measures, of which method, time of day and the respective interaction had the strongest influence. The data indicated that fauna depletion of the sampled area possibly occurred and that the inventory was reaching a plateau by the end of the sampling process. We advocate the use of the Chao estimators as best for intensive protocols limited in space and time and the use of the asymptotic properties of the Michaelis–Menten curve as a stopping or reliability rule, as it allows the investigator to know when a close-to-complete inventory has been obtained and when reliable non-parametric estimators have been achieved. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Spatial variation in biodiversity is one of the key pieces of information for the delimitation and prioritisation of protected areas. This information is especially important when the protected area includes different climatic and habitat conditions and communities, such as those along elevational gradients. Here we test whether the megadiverse communities of spiders along an elevational gradient change according to two diversity models – a monotonic decrease or a hump-shaped pattern in species richness. We also measure compositional variation along and within elevations, and test the role of the preference of microhabitat (vegetation strata) and the functional (guild) structure of species in the changes. We sampled multiple spider communities using standardised and optimised sampling in three forest types, each at a different elevation along a climatic gradient. The elevational transects were at increasing horizontal distances (between 0.1 and 175 km) in the Udzungwa Mountains, Eastern Arc Mountains, Tanzania. The number of species was similar between plots and forest types, and therefore the pattern did not match either diversity model. However, species composition changed significantly with a gradual change along elevations. Although the number of species per microhabitat and guild also remained similar across elevations, the number of individuals varied, e.g. at higher elevations low canopy vegetation was inhabited by more spiders, and the spiders belonging to guilds that typically use this microhabitat were more abundant. Our findings reflex the complex effects of habitat-microhabitat interactions on spider communities at the individual, species and guild levels. If we aim to understand and conserve some of the most diverse communities in the world, researchers and managers may need to place more attention to small scale and microhabitat characteristics upon which communities depend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine whether Species Abundance Distribution models (SADs) and diversity indices can describe how species colonization status influences species community assembly on oceanic islands. Our hypothesis is that, because of the lack of source-sink dynamics at the archipelago scale, Single Island Endemics (SIEs), i.e. endemic species restricted to only one island, should be represented by few rare species and consequently have abundance patterns that differ from those of more widespread species. To test our hypothesis, we used arthropod data from the Azorean archipelago (North Atlantic). We divided the species into three colonization categories: SIEs, archipelagic endemics (AZEs, present in at least two islands) and native non-endemics (NATs). For each category, we modelled rank-abundance plots using both the geometric series and the Gambin model, a measure of distributional amplitude. We also calculated Shannon entropy and Buzas and Gibson's evenness. We show that the slopes of the regression lines modelling SADs were significantly higher for SIEs, which indicates a relative predominance of a few highly abundant species and a lack of rare species, which also depresses diversity indices. This may be a consequence of two factors: (i) some forest specialist SIEs may be at advantage over other, less adapted species; (ii) the entire populations of SIEs are by definition concentrated on a single island, without possibility for inter-island source-sink dynamics; hence all populations must have a minimum number of individuals to survive natural, often unpredictable, fluctuations. These findings are supported by higher values of the α parameter of the Gambin mode for SIEs. In contrast, AZEs and NATs had lower regression slopes, lower α but higher diversity indices, resulting from their widespread distribution over several islands. We conclude that these differences in the SAD models and diversity indices demonstrate that the study of these metrics is useful for biogeographical purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]