Arthropod community sampling
Every 2 months, from June 2010 to April 2011, we collected four terminal
branches of each tree (30-40 cm) in plastic bags and all the arthropods
were manually removed from the vegetal tissue in the laboratory.
Sampling was performed between 8:00 and 10:00 h, because arthropod
sampling is affected by the sampling time (Schoonhoven et al. 2005,
Schowalter 2006). Arthropods were classified into morphospecies, and
then identified to the finest taxonomic level possible. Finally,
herbivore, carnivore, and detritivore categories were assigned to each
morphospecies according to specialized literature and field observation.
Although we did not perform any formal test on this regard, we consider
that the effect of branch removal on this shrub had a negligeable effect
on the tree fitness given the small relative size of the branches that
were sampled in comparison with the plant.