hi! love your blog. This year in uni for my first term paper i will be working with soil isopods and how they affect soil microbiome, fungi, actinomycetes, bacteria, general soil-bacteria activity all that (microcosms). So i was looking for some advice on how to effectively find and capture wild isopods, as well as how to care for them. I'd ask for a humane way to kill them but i'm afraid stuff like freezing may kill the bacteria as well
I've never euthanized them myself, so I definitely can't offer any advice there. But I have caught wild isopods and kept them! I kept both Porcellio and Armadillidium species, which are some of the most common.
The easiest way to find them is to go literally anywhere outside and lift up stones and logs. You don't even need to go anywhere particularly remote - I caught a bunch in the landscaping in the parking lot of my apartment complex just by lifting up rocks. You can also try looking under leaf litter, mulch, or in wood piles between logs. If the area is too dry, you likely won't find many, so try looking somewhere more damp. Tbh I just gently picked them up with my fingers and plopped them into a cup and later transferred them into their enclosure.
Here's a pretty good care sheet, but feel free to IM me if you have specific questions about setup that aren't covered there. I bought substrate from Josh's Frogs and they seemed to love that. I used their milli mix substrate, but they have isopod-specific substrate as well. I can't speak for other brands because I haven't used them, though there are plenty out there. I bought cork bark and dry live oak leaves for hiding and eating from amazon and a big box pet store. Since you're doing research on native species, you could use soil and leaves and wood from where you found them, but be aware you will likely get A LOT of hitchhikers in there. You'd be shocked at what kind of critters can stowe away in a small amount of soil.
