Title: Monitoring ground arthropods in maize and pasture fields of São Miguel and São Jorge Islands: IPM-Popillia Project
Abstract: The dataset presented here is the delivery of the European project “Integrated Pest Management of the Invasive Japanese Beetle, Popillia japonica (IPM-Popillia)”. This project aims to address the challenge of a new risk to plant health in Europe, the invasion of the Japanese beetle, Popillia japonica, and to provide an environmentally friendly IPM-Toolbox to control the pest in infested areas, protecting the agricultural systems and control this pest populations current in expansion across Europe. The present study targets to record, in maize and pasture fields of the Azores, ground arthropods with the potential to be used in futures Integrated Pest Management programs against P. japonica. A sampling program was conducted in two Islands (São Miguel and São Jorge) in the summer of 2022. We provided an inventory of the arthropods recorded in two Azorean agroecosystems (maize and pasture fields) from São Miguel and S. Jorge Islands. A total of ten maize and ten pasture fields were sampled, and a total of 360 pitfall traps were installed, 216 in São Miguel and 144 in São Jorge, for seven consecutive days in August and September of 2022. We collected 18559 specimens belonging to the phylum Arthropoda, four classes, twelve orders, twenty-six families, and forty morphospecies ( two identified at the family level and 38 identified at the species level). We identified only 38 taxa at the species level (n = 18281). Of the 38 identified taxa, 18 species were predators, 15 were plant feeders, and 5 were omnivores. The 18 predators belong to the following families: 10 species were Carabidae, two Staphylinidae, one Anisolabididae, one Chrysopidae, one Leiobunidae, one Nabidae, one Phalangiidae and one Scathophagidae.