Does plant diversity predict soil arthropod diversity? A preliminary assessment using long-term monitoring plots at the University of Mississippi field station

Soil arthropods are functionally important ecosystem service providers in forest ecosystems, as
they facilitate nutrient cycling by breaking down leaf litter and other organic matter. Despite the
high levels of diversity in this taxonomic group, soil arthropods are often overlooked in
conservation plans due to their cryptic nature, and the difficulty of identifying species. We
investigated whether soil arthropod diversity, as measured using mitochondrial DNA sequence
data, is influenced by plant species richness, for which substantial time-series data are available
from the University of Mississippi long-term monitoring plots established in 1996. In addition to
preliminary molecular taxonomic identifications via comparison to DNA barcoding databases,
soil arthropod diversity (the response variable) was quantified in several ways, including using
phylogenetic diversity. Likewise, overstory and understory plant species richness (predictor
variables) were considered separately and combined. If readily measured above ground plant
diversity is found to be a strong predictor of more difficult to measure soil arthropod diversity, it
may serve as a useful proxy that provides a means for devising more informed conservation
plans, thus enhancing forest ecosystems as a whole.