Effects of spring drought and irrigation on farmland arthropods in southern Britain

1. Information is lacking on how possible future changes in the seasonal occurrence and intensity of precipitation in Europe will affect the arthropod community of arable farmland. 2. We used a novel experimental approach to investigate the responses of farmland arthropods to spring precipitation in a spring‐sown legume. Replicated plots were subjected to spring drought (plots shielded from rainfall), actual rainfall (reference) and spring...