RESUMO
The seasonal dynamics of foliage arthropod populations are poorly studied in tropical dry forests despite the importance of these studies for understanding arthropod population responses to environmental change. We monitored the abundance, temporal distributions, and body size of arthropods in five naturalized alien and one native tree species to characterize arthropod seasonality in dry novel Prosopis-Leucaena woodlands in Puerto Rico. A branch clipping method was used monthly to sample foliage arthropod abundance over 39 mo. Seasonal patterns of rainfall and abundance within various arthropod taxa were highly variable from year to year. Abundance for most taxa did not show significant seasonality over the 3 yr, although most taxa had abundance peaks each year. However, Homoptera displayed high seasonality with significant temporal aggregations in each year. Formicidae, Orthoptera, and Coleoptera showed high variation in abundance between wet and dry periods, whereas Hemiptera were consistently more abundant in the wet period. Seasonal differences in mean abundance were found only in a few taxa on Tamarindus indica L., Bucida buceras L., Pithecellobium dulce, and (Roxburgh) Benth. Mean arthropod abundance varied among tree species, with highest numbers on Prosopis juliflora, (Swartz) De Candolle, Pi. dulce, Leucaena leucocephala, and (Lamarck) de Wit. Abundance of Araneae, Orthoptera, Coleoptera, Lepidoptera larvae, and all arthropods showed weak relationships with one or more climatic variables (rainfall, maximum temperature, or relative humidity). Body size of arthropods was usually largest during the dry periods. Overall, total foliage arthropod abundance showed no consistent seasonality among years, which may become a more common trend in dry forests and woodlands in the Caribbean if seasonality of rainfall becomes less predictable.
Assuntos
Artrópodes/crescimento & desenvolvimento , Tamanho Corporal/fisiologia , Dinâmica Populacional , Animais , Florestas , Folhas de Planta , Densidade Demográfica , Porto Rico , Estações do Ano , Árvores , Clima TropicalRESUMO
Conservation planning and implementation require identifying pertinent habitats and locations where protection and management may improve viability of targeted species. The winter range of Bicknell's Thrush (Catharus bicknelli), a threatened Nearctic-Neotropical migratory songbird, is restricted to the Greater Antilles. We analyzed winter records from the mid-1970s to 2009 to quantitatively evaluate winter distribution and habitat selection. Additionally, we conducted targeted surveys in Jamaica (nâ=â433), Cuba (nâ=â363), Dominican Republic (nâ=â1,000), Haiti (nâ=â131) and Puerto Rico (nâ=â242) yielding 179 sites with thrush presence. We modeled Bicknell's Thrush winter habitat selection and distribution in the Greater Antilles in Maxent version 3.3.1. using environmental predictors represented in 30 arc second study area rasters. These included nine landform, land cover and climatic variables that were thought a priori to have potentially high predictive power. We used the average training gain from ten model runs to select the best subset of predictors. Total winter precipitation, aspect and land cover, particularly broadleaf forests, emerged as important variables. A five-variable model that contained land cover, winter precipitation, aspect, slope, and elevation was the most parsimonious and not significantly different than the models with more variables. We used the best fitting model to depict potential winter habitat. Using the 10 percentile threshold (>0.25), we estimated winter habitat to cover 33,170 km(2), nearly 10% of the study area. The Dominican Republic contained half of all potential habitat (51%), followed by Cuba (15.1%), Jamaica (13.5%), Haiti (10.6%), and Puerto Rico (9.9%). Nearly one-third of the range was found to be in protected areas. By providing the first detailed predictive map of Bicknell's Thrush winter distribution, our study provides a useful tool to prioritize and direct conservation planning for this and other wet, broadleaf forest specialists in the Greater Antilles.