Carabid beetles as bio-indicators in Belgian coastal dunes: a long term monitoring project
1995
Desender, K. | Baert, L. (Koninlijk Belgisch Instituut voor Natuurwetenschappen, Brussel (Belgium). Dept. Entomologie)
Since 1990, populations of carabid beetles are continuously monitored in different coastal dune habitats, situated along a transect from seaside marram dunes to inland moss dunes and dune grasslands. During the first four complete year cycles about 10,000 carabids belonging to 73 species have been obtained. Less than 50 percent of these species seem to be continuously present: below certain observed threshold numbers, the turnover in ground beetle species is thus obvious. This level most probably indicates the limit between species with a resident population and those immigrating accidently or temporarily. Carabid communities from the investigated dune habitats are well characterized: differences between years are relatively small due to a large number of species with a pronounced habitat or microhabitat preference, including some carabids, extremely rare in our country. Important changes are observed in the population dynamics of many species from year to year, in most species however the dynamics are more or less similar in the different sampling stations. Time series patterns are nevertheless diverse and tentatively explained by means of climatological data. These results are illustrated and in this way also show details of the phenology of the life cycle for a number of hitherto poorly studied species. Our results indicate the necessity of data on population level (e.g. dynamics, population structure or population genetics) when properly using terrestrial invertebrates as bio-indicators in conservation ecology.
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