Description
Summary:From the report available for download: A number of biologists have collected terrestrial invertebrates on Macquarie Island in previous years. Of these, K. Watson spent a year collecting intensively from various parts of the island both by hand and by extracting soil and litter samples in Tullgren funnels. He distributed the material he collected to taxonomists and published a summary of their findings in 1967. As a consequence, the fauna is relatively well known for a sub-antarctic island of its size. Since 1967 there have been few publications on the invertebrates; two on mites and one on Collembola. Macquarie Island speices have also been included in some general taxonomic revisions. The Collembola, to which most attention was given during the recent field trip, are normally dominant, both in numbers of species and individuals on subantarctic islands, being outnumbered only by the Acari. They are detritivores and hence members of the decomposer suite of organisms. Since other decomposers such as myriapods, isopods, amphipods and some insect larvae are absent from Macquarie Island, the Collembola must be making a significantly larger contribution to nutrient cycling here than in less severe climates. Field work was carried out for two months from December 7th 1986 until January 29th 1987. The fields in this dataset are: Date Species Abundance Location Sample Water % Organic Carbon % Nitrogen % Loss on ignition