COS 39-8
Frequency of arthropod water stress across urban, suburban, and undeveloped habitats in a cool, mesic climate
Water is a key resource for terrestrial life, and variation in availability may alter communities by changing trophic interactions. Specifically, water stressed animals may increase food consumption to meet water, rather than energy or nutrient, demands. In cool, mesic regions, urbanization decreases water availability and increases temperature, but it is unknown if this alters the frequency or severity of arthropod water stress. A deeper understanding of the occurrence of arthropod water stress could be important for pest management in residential and agricultural settings. Towards this goal, we examined the effects of local temperature and water availability on terrestrial arthropod water stress by observing the frequency with which arthropods were using wet and dry water pillows (pouches filled with a polymer that holds water, marketed for cricket care in the pet industry). We made our observations on pillows placed in trees or on the ground, at both sites with high and low impervious surface in a small and large city in NW Ohio between June and August, 2014. We compared these observations to those at clay and sand soil types at a nearby undeveloped oak-savannah.
Results/Conclusions
In the small city of Bowling Green, OH, we more commonly found arthropods on wet and dry water pillows in a low-impervious surface public park (M±SE = 18.46±4.13%) than in an adjacent collection of street trees surrounded by impervious surface (5.77±1.29%). At the low-impervious park, arthropods were found more frequently on wet than dry water pillows (Wet: 26.15±5.87%, Dry: 10.77±3.48%). This was also true for the high-impervious street trees, but the frequency of occurrence was much lower (Wet: 7.69±2.81%, Dry: 3.85±1.72%). Regardless of impervious surface, frequency of occurrence was higher on wet water pillows (26.04±12.77%) than dry (11.24±3.12%). Our data suggests that terrestrial arthropods regularly experienced water stress in this environment, and consumption patterns could be altered as a result. In the future, we aim to discover factors that predict the occurrence of arthropod water stress in northwestern Ohio and the impacts on arthropod distribution and abundance.