Monitoring arthropods under the scope of LIFE-Snails project – Baseline Data

Passive flight interception SLAM traps (Sea, Land and Air Malaise trap) were used to sample each of 11 selected sites on the mixed-forests of Santa Maria Island, between September and December of 2022.
This trap consists in a structure of 110x110x110 cm, where the trapped arthropods crawl up the mesh and then fall inside the sampling recipient (Borges et al. 2017). Each one is filled with propylene glycol (pure 1,2-PROPANODIOL) to kill the captured arthropods and conserve the sample between collections. Although this protocol was developed to sample flying arthropods, by working as an extension of the tree, non-flying species such as spiders can also crawl into the trap (Borges et al. 2017), enhancing the range of groups that can be sampled by this technique. Because of this, previous studies have used these traps to analyse diversity and abundance changes in the arthropod communities in Azores pristine forest sites (Matthews et al. 2019; Borges et al. 2020). The traps were installed during 30 consecutive days, period after which samples were collected during a period of three months (September to December 2022).

A total of 11 sites were sampled in Santa Maria Island. The sampling area consist on mixed-forests of endemic, native and exotic plant species. The main native and endemic species include, Morella faya, Erica azorica, Picconia azorica, Vaccinium cylindraceum or Laurus azorica. The exotic species include Pittosporum undulatum, Hedychium gardnerianum and also forestry plantations of Cryptomeria japonica. Information of vegetation composition (dominant plant species in surrounding area) was recorded

All sorted specimens were identified by a taxonomical expert in laboratory