Abstract

GIRALDO MENDOZA, Alfredo Edgardo. Taxonomic sufficiency as a tool for monitoring epigaeic arthropods: a first attempt in the peruvian coastal desert. Ecol. apl. [online]. 2015, vol.14, n.2, pp.147-156. ISSN 1726-2216.

Taxonomic sufficiency has received increasing attention in studies aimed at monitoring the effects of disturbances on terrestrial arthropod communities. The main objective was to prove that the community structure of epigaeic arthropods analyzed at different taxonomic resolutions can distinguish the ecosystems studied. Epigaeic arthropods were sampled with pitfall traps in six Peruvian coastal desert ecosystems in the province of Pisco (Ica, Peru). The ability to distinguish ecosystems was compared among orders, families and species, using three types of multivariate analyzes (NMDS, cluster, ANOSIM) and three similarity indexes (Raup-Crick, Bray-Curtis, Morisita-Horn). Also, additional analyses were performed to characterize the data matrices and to measure the relationship of community structure with the main environmental gradient (aridity). The results were: 1) the community structure of epigaeic arthropods analyzed at different taxonomic resolutions distinguished ecosystems included in the study area, 2) the aggregation of data matrices is a process that improves the application of multivariate analysis, 3) the community structure of epigaeic arthropods analyzed at different taxonomic resolutions was related to the main environmental gradient in the study area. These results are compared with findings from previous studies and some suggestions for future studies are made.

Keywords : epigaeic arthropods; community structure; taxonomic sufficiency; similarity indexes; biological monitoring; multivariate data.

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