Electronic monitoring of small arthropods in closed mesocosms

The study of small animals in habitat containing coarse substrates of similar granularity (soil, manure . . . ) is hampered by the great difficulties in monitoring the daily activity and demographic dynamics of populations in their environment. However, this is a major issue to improve the management of wingless hematophagous vectors, to progress in the understanding of the role of microarthropods in humus formation as well as in the fun- damental understanding of foraging behaviors and trophic interactions in social insects. The use of experimental units such as mesocosms or experimental anthills provides infor- mation on general effect of the groups’ activity, but doesn’t allow to unravel processes. On the other hand, recently developed electronic tracking tools allow the study in vitro of animal behavior.

We have designed a new mixed experimental system that allows both the development of invertebrate populations in environments similar to their natural environment and the continuous electronic monitoring of the activity of individuals on one or more strategic points, including over several generations. The electronic tracking system can be replicated in dozens of copies, so as to monitor several units and/or several points per unit at the same time. We used this mixed experimental system to conduct a study that we will soon publish in a scientific journal. This repository presents the details of the tool, its validation and its potential use for other experimental applications.

Financial support for this work was provided by the European Regional Development Fund provided by the Interreg North-West Europe Programme (project ’MiteControl’, grant number NWE 756) supported this work), as well as by VetAgro Sup – Lyon (service “Development of a sampling method for estimating vector population dynamics” within the VeCA project led by D. J. Bicout).