dark blue humpback springtail - Lepidocyrtus

Moved

… Jim McClarin, 14 January, 2007 - 10:16am

Collembola specimens are easily damaged...

when using sifting techniques to collect them. As you found out recently. Many of your collected specimens have been damaged (lost scales, broken antennae). To collect undamaged specimens you need to use another technique using a Berlesefunnel, also called Tullgrenfunnel. The basic idea is this: install a funnel over a container having a moist substrate (water film, wet paper, etc). Put a seeve maze 3mm in the funnel. Put a litter sample on top of the seeve. Wait about 2 weeks. Keep the container substrate wet. What will happen = while the litter samples dehydrates slowly, the Collembola will try to migrate deeper into the soil in their search for a more moist environment, ending up eventually in your moist container...
They will be undamaged an in perfect shape ;-)
You can speed up the process by putting a lightbulb above the soil sample. The heat produced by the bulb will speed up the dehydration of the litter sample. But you will find out by trial and error what is the best method in function of the kind of species you are trying to collect.
Good hunting!

… Frans Janssens, 14 January, 2007 - 8:57am

I'm aware of the Berlese funnel method.

I created a blower system that directs an airflow through litter samples, hoping to speed up the process, but I've only used it once with underwhelming results. I think the airflow needed to be warmer/drier. Maybe this summer I will try it again. Alternatively I had thought the addition of a small heater in the airstream might give better results.

One other damage potential arises from my use of an aspirator to collect the specimens I have shaken out of the litter in the sieve. When a fragile hexapod goes shooting through a long tube and hits the hard acrylic plastic wall of the aspirator vial, all sorts of dammage can occur.

… Jim McClarin, 14 January, 2007 - 10:14am

The litter/soil sample of Berlese funnels...

should not dry out too fast. This is one of the major problems of Berlese funnels. We have used a Berlese system of 12 units each with 60 funnels to extract springtails from soil samples of 5cm diameter, 5cm high. The collector containers are cooled in a waterbed. The funnels are in a by lightbulbs heated space to produce an even temperature gradient from top to bottom. This system allowed us to extract even the smallest specimens. Those get lost in the soil sample otherwise when it dries too fast. Bottom line of this story = dry the sample gently from top to bottom.

… Frans Janssens, 15 January, 2007 - 4:45am

Okay,

I can see what you mean. Maybe a faster-acting system would be better for collecting beetles. I think I'll try both and report on the results. (I already purchased a ceramic heater to adapt into my blower system.)

… Jim McClarin, 15 January, 2007 - 11:55am