Changes in the fauna of ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) over the last 100 years in the Kaluga urban district, Russia

We compared the faunistic composition of carabid beetles, collected in Kaluga city and its surroundings (Upper Oka River region, Russia) before 1930, during 1970s, and during 1994–2019. In total, 266 species of Carabidae were registered throughout the history of study in this area, 254 of which are analysed in our work. Twenty five of 218 species were not occurred in this area after 1930, and we found 39 species after 1970, which were not registered before 1930. We compared different methods of sampling and recognised that the majority of carabid species were recorded using hand collecting by entomologists at different times, so new traps and methods of collection can not be the main reason for adding species to check-lists on this territory. Proportions of ecological groups and life forms of species in studied periods were analysed. The most of noticeable local extinction of species after 1930 refers to large zoophagous epigeobionts (Carabus and Calosoma). Five species from 15 of this group were not registered after 1930. Percentage of open-habitat species did not change during XX century despite of significant loss of agricultural lands in Kaluga Region. However, some thermophilous species could be disappearing in 1940s when the climate has become colder and arable lands were overgrown with trees. The most change of species composition is observed among riparian species. It can be associated with changes in the hydrological regime of Oka River and overgrowing of its banks with woody and shrub vegetation. We compared our results with surveys in the West Europe. The degree of long-term changes in the species composition of ground beetles is similar to one in some countries of the West Europe while in Kaluga urban district we didn’t register a tendency to decrease of total species number and to loss of open-habitat species.