The increasing negative effects of human impact on Earth has led to the urgent need for large-scale ecological restoration. One ecosystem of particular interest for restoration is tallgrass prairie, which only has 4% of its original 162 million hectare range remaining in North America. However, restored and constructed prairies often do not support the same biodiversity and ecosystem services as remnant prairies. Most restoration projects only focus on reinstating vegetation, assuming that other trophic levels will colonize on their own. One of these taxonomic groups are arthropods, which make up a majority of the biodiversity in prairie ecosystems. We sought to determine if there is a difference in the arthropod communities in constructed and remnant prairies. It was hypothesized that arthropod communities would be different, and older constructed sites would more closely resemble remnant sites. It is possible that indicator species could be identified, possessing certain functional traits (morphological or life history) that allow them to colonize these sites. Sweepnet samples (100 sweeps per site) were taken at 5 constructed prairies and 5 remnant prairies in 2017, and 7 constructed prairies and 6 remnant prairies in 2018. All arthropods were then sorted to order, and some orders to morphospecies.
Results/Conclusions
We saw that in 2017, Coleoptera (beetle) abundances were higher in remnants compared to constructed sites (p=0.04). In particular, Phalacridae (shining flower beetles) could be possible indicator species for restoration in prairies. Preliminary data from 2018 shows that the number of Phalacridae increases with the age of the constructed site (R-squared=0.47). These results suggest that the arthropod communities are different in the two prairie types and that certain species are not being restored soon after the project, but rather restored slowly over long periods of time as late-successional species are able to colonize. These results could have large implications on how tallgrass prairies are restored and managed, and how these ecosystems should be assessed for restoration.