In arthropod community ecology, species richness studies tend to be prioritised over those investigating patterns of abundance. Consequently, the biotic and abiotic drivers of arboreal arthropod abundance are still relatively poorly known. In this cross-continental study, we employ a theoretical framework in order to examine patterns of covariance among herbivorous and predatory arthropod guilds. Leaf-chewing and leaf-mining herbivores, and predatory ants and spiders, were censused on > 1000 trees in nine 0.1 ha forest plots. After controlling for tree size and season, we found no negative pairwise correlations between guild abundances per plot, suggestive of weak signals of both inter-guild competition and top-down regulation of herbivores by predators. Inter-guild interaction strengths did not vary with mean annual temperature, thus opposing the hypothesis that biotic interactions intensify towards the equator. We find evidence for the bottom-up limitation of arthropod abundances via resources and abiotic factors, rather than for competition and predation.

Bell Museum and Department of Plant and Microbial Biology University of Minnesota Saint Paul MN USA

Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences Institute of Entomology Branisovska 1160 31 370 05 Ceske Budejovice Czech Republic

Center for Tropical Forest Science Forest Global Earth Observatory Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute Ancon Panama

Conservation Ecology Center Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute Front Royal VA USA

Department of Biological Sciences University of Bergen Bergen Norway

Department of Biology The University of Western Ontario London Canada

Department of Ecology Faculty of Science Charles University Vinicna 7 Prague 12843 Czech Republic

Faculty of Science University of South Bohemia Ceske Budejovice Branisovska 1760 370 05 Czech Republic

German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research Halle Jena Leipzig Leipzig DE Germany

National Museum of Natural History Smithsonian Institution Washington DC USA

The Czech University of Life Sciences Prague Czech Republic

The New Guinea Binatang Research Center P O Box 604 Madang Papua New Guinea

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