The Effect Of Arthropods On Our Earth

Pill bugs, Armadillidium vulgare, are terrestrial isopods [Gibbs, Smigel, 2008]. Thus, they are not very well adapted to land [Gibbs, Smigel, 2008]. Water loss is a reoccurring theme because terrestrial isopods lack “cuticular lipids and the elaborate spiracular apparatus of insects” [Gibbs, Smigel, 2008]. Most of the water loss is evaporation from the respiratory organs [Gibbs, Smigel, 2008]. The respiratory organs are called pleopods, and are gill-like organs “located on the ventral abdominal segments” [Gibbs, Smigel, 2008]. Interestingly, pill bugs are capable of conglobation, the ability to roll up in a ball [Gibbs, Smigel, 2008]. In addition to protection from predation, conglobation may also conserve water [Gibbs, Smigel, 2008].

All animals with limbs have a common design. If a batwing were to be formed from a person’s hand, make the fingers extremely long; a horse elongates the middle fingers and reduce and lose the outer ones; frogs elongate the bones of the leg and fuse several of them together. All in all, despite radical changes in what limbs do and what they look like, this underlying blueprint is always present.

All organisms in the world have a range of systems and organs in their body. Some organisms may share similar body systems while others have absolutely nothing in common. Several of those organisms include humans, pigs, crayfish, and earthworms. From their mushy, gushy organs to their soft, gentle skin, you may think, “How are humans and pigs possibly alike? Or a crayfish and an earthworm?” In many ways they may not be, but in other ways, they are very much alike. The body systems that will be compared and contrasted of these organisms are the nervous, circulatory, reproductive, muscular, integumentary, digestive, excretory, and skeletal systems.

Introduction: Almost every place on Earth, from the surface of your skin to the bottom of the ocean, is teeming with living things. To keep track of the vast diversity of life, biologists historically named and classified organisms according to their appearance. The system of categorizing organisms is

The materials needed for this lab were: a light microscope, lamp (if needed or available), microscope slide, coverslip, tweezers, preserved insect leg (or a parakeet’s

The most extensive metamorphic changes of insects internal organs occur with development of the thoracic musculature required for flight, the arrangement of nervous system and the development of gonads [2].

Throughout this lab, three traps were utilized to obtain the most soil arthropods. They are as followed: berlese funnel trap, pitfall trap, and sifting through soil. The materials needed to set up a berlese funnel are a ten liter soda plastic bottle, (metal holes circular), and lastly soil. The ten liter plastic soda bottle needs to be cut across the top and bottom, making the shape of a cylinder. After putting the soil in the berlese funnel trap, by using a shovel, a heating light is required. To set up the pitiful trap a plastic small cup is required. Then a funnel is placed inside the cup so it is level with the plastic cup. Lastly, rubbing alcohol is required at the bottom of the pitiful fall trap which is necessary for the arthropods found to die. The last method used to discover soil arthropods required a metal bin, shovel, and soil.

Many of the Cambrian creatures appear to be arthropods, the large classification of animals that includes insects, spiders, crabs, and lobsters.

The characteristics that contribute to the diversity and abundance of arthropods is the ability to adapt because of their rough, exterior skeleton and joint appendages.

The larval integument of O. lunifer is covered with a multitude of hair types (Floater 1996a; Floater & Zalucki 1999). A typical arthropod hair is embedded in epidermal cells; developed by a trichogen and a tormogen or auxiliary cell, and is connected to neurons for the transmission of sensorial information (Battisti et al. 2011). Urticating hairs, and in particular those classified as true setae, are derived from arthropod hairs (Battisti et al. 2011).

Arthropods are the most successful group of animals because they are the most diverse and live in a greater range of habitats than do the members of any other phylum in the animal kingdom. They are the most numerous living animal species currently known in the world and there may be millions more to be identified. (Myers, 2001) Some species known are insects, spider and crustacean and all are considered invertebrates, which means their bodies do not have internal bones for support. Instead, they produce a hard exoskeleton made of chitin which covers and protects their bodies and as they grow that protective barrier sheds away and are left with a soft exoskeleton. All arthropods have jointed legs attached to their hard exoskeletons that allow

The equipment for the collection comprises of entomology nets, plastic jars, entomology pins, microscopic slides, glass vials, a slab of polystyrene, a ‘shadow box’ for display, forceps, demineralised water, and methylated spirits (70%). The equipment used was purchased or borrowed from the laboratory in Basil-Hetzel Building at University of South Australia City East campus. The locations visited mainly comprised of northern and western suburbs, except for an eastern suburb. Most arthropods were terrestrial (with a few marine), and the other phylum were marine. Specimens were collected from habitats such as domestic (household), wetlands, ocean, and grasslands.

Spiders can be found in all environments throughout the entire world, except in the air and sea. (Biology of Spiders, R.Foelix) These invertebrates of the order Aranea are one of the several groups of the Class Arachnida, with about thirty four thousand species.

The Galapagos Islands is home to some of the world’s most spectacular creatures located in the Pacific Ocean. Isolated and untouched for thousands of years, the Galapagos Islands slowly transformed from barren, volcanic islands to rich, biodiverse lands of scientific research and exploration. The initial acquisition of species to the Galapagos archipelago was a slow dispersal process of species arriving to the islands by means of sea, air, and bird carriers (Jackson). However, with the human discovery of the islands in 1535, the rate of species colonization increased due to human introduction of species such as rodents and insects (“Invasive Species”). In the past century, the number of alien species introduced to the islands by humans/human activity dramatically increased and a total of 1,579 alien species has been recorded, with 1,476 of those species becoming established (Toral-Granda et al. 1).

The major impact of elevated temperature is the associated advancement in the phenology of life history events for many plant and animal species which ultimately results in disruption of synchrony between the interacting pairs. Especially the specialists are more affected than generalist species. For example the spatial mismatch between the monophagous insect Boloria titania (Esper) (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae) and its larval host Polygonum bistortad was reported due to differential range expansion of each species (Schweiger et al. 2008). Another example for phenological asynchrony is recorded by Visser and Holleman (2001), they reported that 90% eggs of winter moth, Operophtera brumata (L.) (Lepidoptera: Geometridae) hatched before the new leaf flush appearance of its host, Quercus robur. Insects are more capable of advancing their lifecycle to the changes in their host this was reported by Both et al., (2009) in his long term experiment in European mixed wood land comprising four trophic levels viz., oak, oak moth, song bird and hawk. The generalist pollinators are keeping pace with climate indued changes in the flowering phenology of plants (Bartomeus et al., 2011). In a bitrophic interaction, host parasitoid interaction under elevated temperature and shading was studied by Klapwijk et al., (2010) and they reported that Euphydrias aurinia (Rottermburg) (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae) and its specialized Braconidae