Ecosystems face multiple, potentially interacting, anthropogenic pressures that can modify biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Using a bryophyte–microarthropod microecosystem we tested the combined effects of habitat loss, episodic heat-shocks an introduced non-native apex predator on function (chlorophyll fluorescence as indicator photosystem II function) microarthropod communities (abunda...

There has been much recent interest and progress in the characterization of community structure and community assembly processes through the application of phylogenetic methods. To date most focus has been on groups of taxa for which some relevant detail of their ecology is known, for which community composition is reasonably easily quantified and where the temporal scale is such that speciatio...

The recent United Kingdom ban on the disposal of sewage sludge at sea has led to the prediction that land application of sludge will become more widespread. The positive aspect of recycling nutrients may, however, be offset by the risk of contamination by heavy metals that are frequently present in sludge. The environmental impact of applying metal-rich sewage sludge to agricultural land was, t...

This paper describes an image processing system developed for automatic counting the number of collembola individuals on petri disks images. The system uses image segmentation and mathematical morphology techniques to identify and count the number of collembolans. The main challenges are the specular reflections at the edges of the circular samples and the foam present in a number of samples. T...

Collembola, commonly known as springtails, are important detritivores, abundant in leaf litter and soil globally. Springtails wingless hexapods with many North American species having wide distributions ranging from far Alaska to Mexico. Here, we analyze the occurrence intraspecific diversity of springtails a globular body shape (Symphypleona Neelipleona), southern high Appalachia, significant ...

The contributions of soil arthropods to entomopathogenic nematode (EPN) food webs are mainly studied in artificial conditions. We investigated changes arthropod communities a citrus orchard following inundation with Steinernema feltiae or Heterorhabditis bacteriophora. hypothesized that taxa, which decline increase response EPN augmentation, represent potential prey predators EPN, respectively....