26th Annual Student Research Conference
Insect Communities in a Grazed Sagebrush Steppe Environment
Lucas Hauser
Dr. Stephanie Fore, Faculty Mentor
The sagebrush community is a vast ecosystem of mammals, birds, flora, grasses and insects across western North America. Grazing by livestock on this ecosystem presents a constant disturbance. The purpose of this study was to access insect communities in two different grazed locations in northwest Nevada, each with an upland and a riparian area. Insect diversity was accessed with pitfall, sweep, and observational methods to determine abundance, composition, and evenness of insect families. Preliminary analyses suggest that Hymenopterans were more abundant in upland pitfalls than any other order, although Coleopterans and Arachnids were more evenly represented in riparian pitfalls. Dipterans and arachnids were the bulk of the samples in the sweep method. These data are an important baseline for examining succession in sagebrush steppe restoration.
Keywords: Insect families, Grazing, Nevada, Abundance, composition, eveness, variety of methods
Topic(s):Biology
Environmental Studies
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 109-4
Location: MG 2001
Time: 8:45