Relationships between arthropod community characteristic and meteorological factors in Zanthoxylum bungeanum gardens

Zanthoxylum bungeanum is one of the important economic tree species in the programs for reforesting some of the cultivated land,afforestating barren hill,and conserving water and top soil in some areas of China.The relationships between the arthropod community characteristic and the meteorological factors,which include the lowest,highest and even air temperatures,the lowest,highest and even relative humidity,and the total rainfall in a month,in Z.bungeanum gardens near the Jinshajiang River in Yongshan County,Yunnan Province,China,were analyzed.The results showed that the species and individual number of phytophagous insects had the highest ratio in the arthropod community;the species diversity,evenness and abundance of the predatory and parasitic enemies were higher than those of phytophagous insects and neutral insects,and their dominant concentration index was relatively lower also;the neutral insects had higher dominance index and dominant concentration index,and the ratio of individual number of the dominant species was relatively higher.The arthropod community characteristic appeared seasonal variation rule evidently.The individual number of arthropod community increased rapidly from March,and reached the peak value in April.And then,the species and individual number of the nature enemies and neutral insects increased also.From late April to early June,the species diversity,abundance and evenness index reached the peak value,and the dominant concentration index decreased to the lowest value gradually.The heavy rainfall decreased every characteristic index of the arthropod community in July and August.The individual number of the community reached the second peak value in September.From the late October to January of the nest year,the species diversity,abundance and evenness index of the community decreased evidently.The lowest relative humidity was the most important factor affecting the individual number and the species number of the community,and the relationship of them was the positive correlation;the species diversity,abundance and evenness of the community correlated highly with the highest air temperature and the highest relative humidity,which indicated that in the higher temperature and humidity environment,the community had higher species diversity,abundance and evenness;the dominant concentration index and the dominance index correlated highly with the highest air temperature and the lowest relative humidity,which indicated that the higher air temperature or lower relative humidity was more suitable for the population increase of the dominant species;the stability indices Ss/Si and Sn/Sp,correlated highly with the mean relative humidity,which showed that the appropriate relative humidity was suitable for the increase of the restraining effect among the species.The affection of rainfall on the community characteristic was the weakest.From March to June,and from September to February of next year,which had less than 99.3 mm precipitation a month,the community characteristic index was positive correlation with the rainfall.In July and August,which had more than 164.5 mm precipitation a month,the community characteristic index was negative correlation with the rainfall.Comprehensive analysis showed that there were the close relationships between the meteorological factors and arthropod community characteristic.As the measurement and analysis of the air temperature,humidity and rainfall was more convenient,the analysis method of this paper has its practical significance for the research of variation rule of the arthropod community characteristics and the occurrence of pest population.