Ground arthropod communities in urban and rural riparian forests

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Vashtidevi B. Mahadeo, Amanda Sprague-Getsy and Weixing Zhu, Biological Sciences, Binghamton University (SUNY), Binghamton, NY

Background/Question/Methods
An increasing proportion of human populations are living in cities and increasing urbanization comes at a cost to natural ecosystems. For example, riparian forests are becoming ecologically degraded, and their roles in providing society with ecosystem services will be altered. Riparian forests are stream side forests which are transitional areas between aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems and facilitate unique interactions while providing key ecosystem services. Anthropogenic change due to urbanization negatively affects the role of riparian forests in providing these services, by changing biogeochemical cycles as well as impacting biodiversity. A large proportion of riparian forest diversity is represented by invertebrate communities which play major roles as pollinators, soil aerators, organic matter processors, and prey for other species. Altered arthropod fluxes in urban areas can affect food webs, nutrient cycling, and stream water chemistry with cascading effects.
This study aims to investigate riparian forest ground dwelling arthropod abundance and community composition. Urban and rural riparian sites are selected in the Greater Binghamton area of the Southern Tier, New York. As a medium sized city, these areas often share more interactions with nature compared to large, densely populated cities, and therefore understanding impacts on ecosystem structure and function are of key importance. Field surveys of ground arthropods were conducted using pitfall traps at urban and rural riparian forests in 2019 and 2020. We counted total abundances and identified ground arthropods to order and family levels.
Results/Conclusions
Preliminary results indicate that on average, urban sites had higher ground arthropod abundances than natural sites when counting the following taxonomic orders: Coleoptera, Acari, Collembola, Arachnida, Myriapoda, Hymenoptera (only ants), Orthoptera, and Hemiptera. Within Arachnida, 14 families of spiders were identified which consisted of 26 species. For arachnids, average richness of urban sites was greater than natural sites. Of all spiders collected, wolf spiders (family Lycosidae) represented 40.65 %. Further analyses will be conducted using generalized linear models to determine differences in abundance and composition among sites.
If riparian forest ground arthropod communities in urban areas are comparable to those within natural riparian forests, then these green spaces in urban areas provide important sites and opportunities for conservation. Maintaining riparian forests as corridors along streams and urban greenspace can allow effective riparian ecosystem management and mitigate some ecological issues related to land use and environmental quality and contribute to human wellbeing and urban sustainability.