The analyses of the soil communitieswere performed on five subsamples
collected at each site. To extract the arthropods, the soil
samples were placed in a Tullgren apparatus at VU University
(Amsterdam, The Netherlands) for 4 weeks following the method
of Van Straalen and Rijninks (1982). The air temperature above the
samples was 30 °C while the bottom of the samples was kept at
5 °C. The arthropods were collected in jars containing a 70% ethanol
solution. In the final step, the animals were counted and identified
according to the major taxonomic groups.