Monitoring arthropod diversity in Douro wine region vineyards

Abstract: Nowadays, many actions aim to enhance the biological control in agro ecosystems inorder to improve their resilience and sustainability. To what extent does the landscape structureimprove biodiversity? Is it possible to adapt vineyard management or surrounding landscape toimprove the presence of ecological infrastructures and thus increase biodiversity? Those twoquestions are the basis of the European project LIFE+ “BioDiVine: Demonstrating functionalbiodiversity in viticulture landscapes”.In Portugal, ADVID is in charge of the implementation of conservation actions and formonitoring their impact in three experimental sites located in the Douro Valley, with a globalsurface of nearly 500 hectares. In 2011, two types of traps (combi and pitfall) have been set up infive main habitats: vineyard, scrubland, urban, olive groves and olive hedgerows. The arthropodscaught during seven weeks of assessment (April-June) were sorted out using the RapidBiodiversity Assessment (RBA) method. Biological indexes were calculated and correlated withlandscape characteristics (Shannon’s landscape index) calculated through a GIS database toinvestigate the way habitats influence arthropods’ biodiversity and, in the particular functionalbiodiversity (Coccinellidae and Staphylinidae, Araneae and Opilionidae). More than 52000arthropods were counted and 789 morphospecies identified, belonging to 18 orders of Insecta andfive orders of Arachnida. Arthropods caught by combi traps were more abundant on scrublands.Some positive correlations have been established between landscape components and arthropodspresence. Staphylinidae abundance and richness were higher in more diverse landscape.Concerning other taxa, each order appears to be differently influenced by the landscape’sstructure.