Arthropod biodiversity and community structures of tobacco ecosystems in the South of Anhui province, China

Absract The diversity and community structure of arthropods in the primitive tobacco ecosystem in the South of Anhui province, China was studied. The investigations were undertaken from April to August 2012. The comparisons were undertaken using a combination of community assessment approaches, including morphospecies richness, the Shannon-Weaver diversity index, H', the Simpson dominance index C, the relative abundance P and the compositions of the sub communities. We collected 8539 individuals of arthropods, which belong to 53 species of arthropods, including 28 species of herbivorous arthropods and 25 species of predatory arthropods. The dominant herbivorous arthropod was Myzus persicae and the dominant predatory arthropods were Erigonidium graminicolum, Reduviidae and Episyrphus balteatus. The diversity indexes of arthropod community and predatory community were higher than those of herbivorous community, while the dominance indexes of arthropod community and predatory community were lower than those of herbivorous community. There are 76 kinds of phototactic insect species belonging to 8 orders, 42 families in light-trap. The effect of arthropod biodiversity on the agricultural importance was discussed in the tobacco field.