Insect Pests and Arthropods in Heritage Interiors

The insect threat to heritage objects can increase with climate change, increased travel, movement of goods and loan exhibitions. This study used catch from 30 heritage environments across Austria. Overall arthropod catch rate in storerooms was lower than in museums and libraries. Taxonomic richness of the ecosystem in the buildings was a product of building size, perhaps paralleling island biogeography. Heritage pests are distributed independently and follow environmental gradients, perhaps aligning with Henry Gleason’s continuum theory of ecological communities. Catch rates for some abundant pests are evenly distributed among buildings (e.g., Psocoptera booklice, Lepisma saccharinum common silverfish), but Tineola bisselliella, the webbing clothes moth, is unevenly distributed because some locations have large infestations. Rare species are unevenly distributed, as these are found in only a few buildings. A characteristic set of insect pests appear to dominate indoor heritage environments in Austria: Psocoptera, Lepismatidae silverfish, Tineola bisselliella webbing clothes moth and carpet beetles like Anthrenus spp. and Attagenus spp. These pests are also common in the interiors of heritage buildings in some other European countries.