Spatiotemporal diversity, structure and trophic guilds of insect assemblages in a semi-arid Sabkha ecosystem
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Biodiversity, Ecology, Ecosystem Science, Entomology, Zoology
- Keywords
- entomological biodiversity, Sabkha Djendli, insect community ecology, pitfall trapping, Algeria, ecological niche, functional groups, wetlands, conservation biology, semi-arid lands.
- Copyright
- © 2014 Chenchouni et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ PrePrints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2014. Spatiotemporal diversity, structure and trophic guilds of insect assemblages in a semi-arid Sabkha ecosystem. PeerJ PrePrints 2:e741v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.741v1
Abstract
The current study highlights some knowledge on the diversity and structure of insect communities and trophic groups living in Sabkha Djendli (semi-arid area of Northeastern Algeria). The entomofauna was monthly sampled from March to November 2006 using pitfall traps at eight sites located at the vicinity of the Sabkha. Structural and diversity parameters (species richness, Shannon index, evenness) were measured for both insect orders and trophic guilds. The canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) was applied to determine how vegetation parameters (species richness and cover) influence spatial and seasonal fluctuations of insect assemblages. The catches totalled 434 insect individuals classified into 75 species, 62 genera, 31 families and 7 orders, where Coleoptera and Hymenoptera were the most abundant and constant over seasons and study stations. Spring and autumn presented the highest values of diversity parameters. Based on catch abundance, the structure of functional trophic groups was predator (37.3%), saprophagous (26.7%), phytophagous (20.5%), polyphagous (10.8%), coprophagous (4.6%); whereas in terms of numbers of species, they can be classified as phytophagous (40%), predators (25.3%), polyphagous (13.3%), saprophagous (12%), coprophagous (9.3%). The CCA demonstrated that phytophagous and saprophagous as well as Coleoptera and Orthoptera were positively correlated with the two parameters of vegetation, especially in spring and summer. While the abundance of coprophagous was positively correlated with species richness of plants, polyphagous density was positively associated with vegetation cover. The insect community showed high taxonomic and functional diversity that is closely related to diversity and vegetation cover in different site stations and seasons.
Author Comment
This is a submission to PeerJ for review.