Mt.
CAIN BIODIVERSITY PROJECT
Location: 50°13'N; 126°18'W
Montane Very Wet Maritime Coastal Western Hemlock variant (CWHvm2) and the
Windward Moist Maritime Mountain Hemlock variant (MHmm1).
PROJECT
LEADERS:
N.N. Winchester, University of Victoria
L.L. Fagan, M.Sc. thesis
1997-1999
The
arthropod fauna colonizing needle litter in a temperate montane forest on
Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada was investigated. Arthropods were
collected from three elevations (800 m, 1000 m, and 1200 m) on Mt. Cain in
1997 and two elevations (800 m and 1200 m) on Mt. Cain and Mt. Maquilla in
1997. Sterile
litter bags were filled with fir needles on the ground and in the canopies
of randomly chosen amabilis fir trees to:
Litter
bags were collected at varying time (1997: 60, 120, 360 days; 1998: 30, 60,
and 90 days) and arthropods were extracted using a modified Lussenhop extractor.
During the 1996 field season five sites were sampled for ground arthropods
using a variety of different trapping techniques. The
total number of arthropods extracted and processed to the ordinal level from
all traps for the entire 1996 field season was 364,794. In 1997, 77,888 specimens
from all traps for the entire field season were processed to the ordinal level.
Branch
Clipping Program 2007
To investigate the oribatid mite community inhabiting microhabitats in the
canopy of montane amabilis fir and western hemlock tree species across five
elevational sites at Mt. Cain, 180 branch tip and 180 foliose lichen samples
collected over three time periods (1996) were processed in 2007.
At these microhabitat scales, distinct assemblages were associated with lichen
and branch tip habitats, and to a lesser degree, tree species.
Selected
Publications
-
Winchester,
N.N., Z. Lindo, and V.M. Behan-Pelletier. 2008. Oribatid mite communities
in the canopy of montane Abies amabilis and Tsuga heterophylla
trees on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Environmental Entomology 37:
464-471.
-
Fagan,
L.L., R.K. Didham, N.N. Winchester, V. Behan-Pelletier, M. Clayton, E. Lindquist,
and R.A. Ring. 2006. An experimental assessment of biodiversity and species
turnover in terrestrial vs canopy leaf litter. Oecologia 147: 335-347.
-
Winchester,
N.N., and L.L. Fagan. 2000. Canopy arthropods of montane forests on Vancouver
Island, British Columbia, Canada. J. Sust. For. 10: 355-361.
-
Fagan,
L.L. 1999. Arthropod colonization of needle litter on the ground and in
the canopy of montane Abies amabilis trees on Vancouver Island,
British Columbia. University of Victoria, M.Sc. thesis.