Automatic Detection of Moths (Lepidoptera) with a Funnel Trap Prototype.

Monitoring insect populations is essential to optimise pest control with the correct protection timing and the avoidance of unnecessary insecticide use. Modern real-time monitoring practices use automatic insect traps, which are expected to be able to estimate the population sizes of pest animals with high species specificity. There are many solutions to overcome this challenge; however, there are only a few data that consider their accuracy under field conditions.

Urban soil quality deteriorates even with low heavy metal levels: An arthropod-based multi-indices approach.

Urban-induced habitat conversion drastically changes soil life in a variety of ways. Soil sealing, human disturbance, habitat fragmentation, industrial and vehicular pollution are the main causes of urban soil degradation. Soil arthropods, as one of the most abundant and diverse group of soil fauna, are involved in many soil processes that are of great importance in maintaining soil health and multifunctionality.

Automatic Field Detection of Western Corn Rootworm (; Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) with a New Probe.

The Western corn rootworm (WCR), LeConte (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae), is a significant invasive pest of maize plantations in Europe. Integrated pest management demands an adequate monitoring system which detects the activity of insects with high accuracy in real-time. In this study, we show and test a new electronic device (ZooLog KLP), which was developed to detect WCR in the field.

Detecting Soil Microarthropods with a Camera-Supported Trap.

There is an increasing need to monitor activity and population growth of arthropods; however, this is a time-consuming and financially demanding process. Using sensors to detect arthropods in the field can help to follow their dynamics in time. Improving our earlier device, we developed a new camera-supported probe to detect soil microarthropods.

An Opto-electronic Sensor-ring to Detect Arthropods of Significantly Different Body Sizes.

Arthropods, including pollinators and pests, have high positive and negative impacts on human well-being and the economy, and there is an increasing need to monitor their activity and population growth. The monitoring of arthropod species is a time-consuming and financially demanding process. Automatic detection can be a solution to this problem.

Metagenomics Reveals Bacterial and Archaeal Adaptation to Urban Land-Use: N Catabolism, Methanogenesis, and Nutrient Acquisition.

Urbanization results in the systemic conversion of land-use, driving habitat and biodiversity loss. The "urban convergence hypothesis" posits that urbanization represents a merging of habitat characteristics, in turn driving physiological and functional responses within the biotic community. To test this hypothesis, we sampled five cities (Baltimore, MD, United States; Helsinki and Lahti, Finland; Budapest, Hungary; Potchefstroom, South Africa) across four different biomes.

Effects of single and repeated drought on soil microarthropods in a semi-arid ecosystem depend more on timing and duration than drought severity.

Soil moisture is one of the most important factors affecting soil biota. In arid and semi-arid ecosystems, soil mesofauna is adapted to temporary drought events, but, until now, we have had a limited understanding of the impacts of the different magnitudes and frequencies of drought predicted to occur according to future climate change scenarios. The present study focuses on how springtails and mites respond to simulated repeated drought events of different magnitudes in a field experiment in a Hungarian semi-arid sand steppe.

Urbanization erodes ectomycorrhizal fungal diversity and may cause microbial communities to converge.

Urbanization alters the physicochemical environment, introduces non-native species and causes ecosystem characteristics to converge. It has been speculated that these alterations contribute to loss of regional and global biodiversity, but so far most urban studies have assessed macro-organisms and reported mixed evidence for biodiversity loss. We studied five cities on three continents to assess the global convergence of urban soil microbial communities.

An Opto-Electronic Sensor for Detecting Soil Microarthropods and Estimating Their Size in Field Conditions.

Methods to estimate density of soil-dwelling arthropods efficiently, accurately and continuously are critical for investigating soil biological activity and evaluating soil management practices. Soil-dwelling arthropods are currently monitored manually. This method is invasive, and time- and labor-consuming.

Demography of some non-native isopods (Crustacea, Isopoda, Oniscidea) in a Mid-Atlantic forest, USA.

Introduced species dominate the terrestrial isopod fauna in most inland habitats of North America, including urban landscapes. These non-native species are often very abundant and thus potentially play a significant role in detritus processing. We monitored isopod assemblages in an urban forest for a year to examine the relationship between surface activity and abiotic environmental factors, and to analyze reproductive characteristics that might contribute to their successful establishment.

New method for automatic body length measurement of the collembolan, Folsomia candida Willem 1902 (Insecta: Collembola).

The collembolan, Folsomia candida, is widely used in soil ecotoxicology. In recent years, growth rate of collembolans has become as frequently used endpoint as reproduction rate in ecotoxicological studies. However, measuring collembolan body sizes to estimate growth rate is a complicated and time-consuming task.