Diversity of Subcortical Arthropod Communities in Tropical and Temperate Forests

Species diversity of subcortical arthropod communities were assessed in two tropical regions and two temperate regions. In the tropics, communities of subcortical arthropods were more diverse in La Selva, Costa Rica, than on Barro Colorado Island, Panama. Costa Rican communties yielses higher values of both Shannon and Simpson diversity indices than Panamanian communities. Compared to Panamanian communities, Costa Rican ones supported higher measures of both species richness and evenness. Between the two temperate regions, communities of subcortical arthropods in Korea scored consistently higher values of both Shannon and Simpson indices than the ones in eastern Massachusetts, U.S.A. When individual diversity components were compared, however, Korean communities yielded exceptionally high evenness measures but lower species richness than the communities in the U.S.A. Unusually high evenness values of Korean subcortical arthropods were due to extremely low population densities of all component species.