Texas A & M International University

BIOL 3010 2L2 SP17

Arthropod Diversity Lab Report

Judge M Garza, Sabrina Garza, Keike Rabago,
April 24, 2017
Amede Rubio
Introduction

Plants and insects often associate with each other in an ecosystem. We pass by many

plants every day and we do not realize the arthropod diversity that is on each plant. It can widely

differ depending on the species of plant. The two plants that we are going to be looking at the

populations of arthropods are the mesquite and the blackbrush plants. These two plants are

indigenous to south Texas and are highly abundant in dry hot climates. Many different insects

are found on these plants such as arthropods, beetles, caterpillars, worms, etc.

Methods

To obtain the data for this report we used a method called a beading method where we

used a meter stick to beat a selected tree branch repeatedly for one minute. Underneath the place

where we were hitting the branch we had a small collection clothing in a square fashion where

the insects would land and we would count how much we got. We collected data from three

mesquite trees and three blackbrush plants.

Blackbrush Mesquite

Location 1 1 crab spider, 1 unknown 1 inchworm

spider, 1 inchworm

Location 2 2 spiders, 1 inchworm, 1 ant, 1 inchworm

2 beetles

Location 3 1 crab spider, 2 inchworms, 2 1 truebug

beetles.
Discussion

For this data collection, it can be kind of tricky because some of the insects that landed

onto the cloth either flew off or some stayed tuck onto the branch. Also, not all the plants that

we selected had much insects, this was true for the mesquite plants where we only accounted

one insect per one minute interval of beating.

Conclusion
Overall, this arthropod diversity experiment and data collection provided us with insight

on what insects are populated on the blackbrush and mesquite plants. Before conducting this

experiment, we did not realize that there were many insects on plants but after beating a few

blackbrush, it opened our eyes and made us realize how many insects that are out there. For

mesquite plants, they were only populated by inchworms. The blackbrush plant had a higher

diversity of arthropods that included spiders, inchworms, true bugs, and beetles.