Distribution and abundance of soil arthropods in the northern Mojave desert

Technical Report · Thu Mar 01 04:00:00 EST 1979

OSTI ID:6230983

Franco, P J; Edney, E B; McBrayer, J F

Arthropods were extracted from soil samples taken from around four perennial plant species in Rock Valley, Nevada from January to December 1975. The pattern of distribution of the anthropods about the shrubs is described and a model has been constructed to estimate population densities and biomasses. Total arthropod densities ranged from 1600 per m/sup 2/ in July to 12,400 per m/sup 2/ in December. Total biomass was also lowest in July, 8.7 mg/m/sup 2/, and reached 37.2 mg/m/sup 2/ in May. The majority of animals collected belonged to the Acari, and of these the Cryptostigmata and the prostigmatid families, Nanorchestidae and Tydeidae, were most abundant. Seasonal variations in the distribution patterns are discussed.

• Research Organization: California Univ., Los Angeles (USA). Lab. of Nuclear Medicine and Radiation Biology
• DOE Contract Number: EY-76-C-03-0012
• OSTI ID: 6230983
• Report Number(s): UCLA-12-1190
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

510100* -- Environment
Terrestrial-- Basic Studies-- (-1989)
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
ABUNDANCE
ANIMALS
ARID LANDS
ARTHROPODS
BIOMASS
DATA
DATA FORMS
DESERTS
DISTRIBUTION
ENERGY SOURCES
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
GRAPHS
INFORMATION
INVERTEBRATES
ISOLATED VALUES
NEVADA
NORTH AMERICA
NUMERICAL DATA
PLANTS
POPULATION DENSITY
RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES
SEASONAL VARIATIONS
SOILS
USA
VARIATIONS
WESTERN REGION