Arthropods are part of important functional groups in soil food webs. Recognizing these
arthropods and understanding their function in the ecosystem as well as when they are active is
essential to understanding their roles. In the present work, the abundance and diversity of soil
arthropods is examined in olive groves in the northeast region of Portugal during the spring. Five
classes of arthropods were found: Chilopoda, Malacostraca, Entognatha, Insecta, and Arachnida.
Captures were numerically dominated by Collembola within Entognatha, representing 70.9% of
total captures. Arachnida and Insecta classes represented about 20.4 and 9.0%, respectively.
Among the predatory arthropods, the most representative groups were Araneae and Opiliones
from Arachnida, and Formicidae, Carabidae, and Staphylinidae from Insecta. From the
Formicidae family, Tetramorium semilaeve (Andre 1883), Tapinoma nigerrimum (Nylander
1856), and Crematogaster scutellaris (Olivier 1792) were the most representative ant species.
Arthropods demonstrated preference during the day, with 74% of the total individuals recovered
in this period, although richness and similarity were analogous during the day and night.
