SAVAGE, M. and LONGCORE, T. This doctoral dissertation research will monitor and compare terrestrial arthropods at three ecological restoration sites and nine comparison sites that represent a continuum of conditions from undisturbed to highly disturbed. All sites will be sampled monthly for one year using pitfall traps and these data added to an existing 4 year data set from the comparison sites. Plant diversity and structure at all sites will be measured. The results will be analyzed to further three important goals in restoration research. 1) Reference conditions will be defined for the terrestrial arthropod communities in coastal sage scrub, both in terms of species composition and general measures such as diversity and percent exotic species. 2) Community development on restoration sites will be investigated and related to known successional models. For example, the study will test whether the guild structure on restoration sites is similar to that found for old field sites. 3) Quantitative measures will be developed to evaluate the relative success of unreplicated restoration attempts. Data from restoration and comparison sites will be ordinated using multivariate techniques to determine if their terrestrial arthropod communities can be used to discriminate among them and evaluate the restoration sites relative to the comparison sites. Vegetation data will be used to test whether differences among restoration and comparison sites are explained by plant diversity or structure. The proposed project will contribute to knowledge about restoration ecology and insect community ecology. By relating successional concepts more closely to restoration attempts, the project can illustrate the opportunities for the use of restoration sites as experiments to address questions in community ecology and biogeography. Both restoration ecologists and environmental policymakers should find conclusions about the capability of restorations to support arthropod diversity of value in designing future restoration plans.
