THE GROUND BEETLE (COLEOPTERA: CARABIDAE) COMMUNITY IN AN INTENSIVELY MANAGED AGRICULTURAL LANDSCAPE

The effects of intensive agricultural management practices and environmental changes on biodiversity can be monitored by using the carabid beetles as biological indicators of agroecosystems quality. This study aimed to investigate the ground beetle species composition, abundance, dominance, diversity, zoogeographical types and distribution groups in an intensively managed agricultural field. Epigeic carabid fauna was collected weekly using pitfall traps on an arable crop field in Podravina, Croatia. Altogether, 1429 individuals belonging to 26 species and 15 genera were collected. The most abundant and eudominant were Poecilus cupreus (Linnaeus, 1758), followed by Brachinus psophia Audinet-Serville, 1821 and Pterostichus melas melas (Creutzer, 1799). Two species were dominant, two subdominant, four recedent and 15 subrecedent. The diversity of fauna was moderately high: Simpson diversity index 0.7875, Shannon-Wiener index 1.9654 and Pielou's evenness 0.6032. Zoogeographical analysis showed equal dominance of Euroasian and Palearctic species. Most (73%) of species belonged to E and 27% to A relict class. The majority of species were spring breeders (14 species), 8 species were autumn breeders and one species breeds in both seasons. In intensively managed agricultural landscape, ground beetle diversity was moderately high, because most of the species were eurytopic, i.e. capable of inhabiting strongly anthropogenically influenced landscapes.