1998 ESA North Central Branch Meeting Abstract
66 THE INFLUENCE OF CROPPING SYSTEMS ON THE BIODIVERSITY OF COLLEMBOLA IN
SOUTHERN WISCONSIN. Eric J. Rebek, David B. Hogg, and Daniel K. Young, University of Wisconsin - Madison, 237 Russell Labs, 1630 Linden Drive, Madison, WI 53706
Collembola populations were sampled from four cropping systems contained within two sites in southern Wisconsin during the summers of 1995 and 1996. We buried large-pore decomposition bags filled with corn stubble six inches below the soil surface to attract decomposer arthropods. Each site had identical plots representing different crops in various phases of rotation. We studied six phases within the four cropping systems: continuous corn, pasture, soybean, oats/alfalfa and two corn phases from different systems. Two undisturbed,
"natural" sites were added for comparison in 1996. Collembola were extracted using Berlese funnels, counted and initially separated at the family level. Two diversity indices, Shannon and Simpson, were used for evaluating faunal differences among treatments. Analyses for family-level identifications using ANOVA revealed significantDifferences in some cases among cropping systems. No significant system effects were found in 1996. In 1995, however, systems at one site were significantly different using the Shannon index while the same result was found for systems at the other site using the Simpson index. In order to resolve these discrepancies, genus-level
identifications are now in progress and will be used in the same statistical manner for defining the influence of these cropping systems on collembolan biodiversity.
This paper will be presented on Monday.
Back to NCB Home Page