The forest patches covered an area of at least 6 ha. The distinction of sampling areas (urban, suburban and rural) based on the ratio of built-up area to natural habitats measured by the ArcView GIS program using an aerial photograph in a square of 1km size around the sampling area. Buildings, roads and asphalt covered paths were regarded as built-up area. In the urban area, the built-up part exceeded 60%, in the suburban area it was approximately 30%, while in the rural one there was no built-up area. The forest patches in the urban area belong to an urban park with several asphalt covered paths and strongly thinned shrub layer. In the suburban area fallen trees were removed, while in the rural area forest management was only occasional at a low-intensity level. Distances between the sampling areas (urban, suburban, rural) were at least 1-1 km, Four sites, at least 50 m from each other, selected within each sampling area. Terrestrial isopods collecte at each of the 4 sites of the 3 sampling areas using unbaited pitfall traps, consisting of plastic cups (diameter 65 mm, volume 250 ml) containing 75% ethylene glycol as a killing-preserving solution from the end of March to the end of November, 2001. Traps emptied fortnightly. Ten traps were placed randomly at least 10 m apart at each site. This resulted in a total of 120 traps scattered along the urban-rural gradient (3 area × 4 sites × 10 traps). Each pitfall trap was at least 50 m from the nearest forest edge, in order to avoid edge effects .The traps covered with bark pieces to protect them from litter and rain For analysis, catches from each trap were pooled for the whole year. Of course, other sampling methods could enhance the possibility to catch rare and/or small sized, soil dwelling species

To test differences in the overall isopod abundance, and in the abundance of the trapped isopod species among the three sampling areas (urban, suburban and rural) and among the 12 sites, nested analyses of variance (ANOVA) were performed. Data of individual traps were used (sites nested within the sampling areas). Normal distribution of the data was achieved by log(x+1) transformation .Ecological characteristics (forest specialists, urban environment specialists, generalists) of the terrestrial isopod species caught were based on the literature .The urban environment specialist species are frequently non-native, but mainly invasive and/or established introduced ones .When ANOVA revealed a significant difference between the means, the this test performed for multiple comparisons among means.

Thank you for your answer and for all the details you have provided for completing the sampling of terrestrial isopods in the oases

its depend on the dominant feature of the Earth.