Abstract
Ground beetle assemblages were studied by pitfall trapping during summer 2006 in the municipality of Leksand (Sweden) along a gradient in traffic intensity (10 replicates in high and low traffic and five in no traffic) and at progressive distances from the roadside (5, 15, 40 and 80 m). The ground beetles’ activity density was larger in high- with respect to low-traffic areas. Rarefaction analysis showed that richness did not differ between high and low traffic, whereas it was higher in high and low compared to no-traffic areas. Rarefaction analysis performed in high- and low-traffic areas separately showed that species richness was higher at shorter distance from the road in both treatments. Gradient analysis showed that traffic intensity influenced carabid species composition, although the proportion of explained variation was rather low. Mean body length differed between the three treatments, where ground beetles were larger in no-traffic areas. The proportion of macropterous and diet-generalist beetles did not differ amongst the three treatments. However, there was a difference in the proportion of macropterous beetles in low-traffic areas amongst sampling distances, and in the proportion of diet-generalist beetles amongst sampling distances at both high- and low-traffic areas. The proportion of diet-generalist beetles decreased with increasing distance from the road in both treatments. Our study suggests that major roads have a significant effect on ground beetles assemblages. However, many changes in assemblages and morpho-ecological adaptations followed the gradient in traffic intensity, suggesting that also minor roads affect ground beetle composition. Therefore, efforts to improve habitat connectivity should also consider low-traffic roads.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Andersen J (1995) A comparison of pitfall trapping and quadrat sampling of Carabidae (Coleoptera) on river banks. Entomol Fenn 6:65–75
Andersen J (2000) What is the origin of the Carabid beetle fauna of dry, anthropogenic habitats in western Europe? J Biogeogr 27:795–806
Bohac J, Hanouskova I, Matejka K (2004) Effect of habitat fragmentation due to traffic impact of different intensity on epigeic beetle communities in cultural landscape of the Czech Republic. Ekologia (Bratislava) 22:35–46
Brandmayr P, Zetto T, Pizzolotto R (2005) I Coleotteri Carabidi per la valutazione ambientale e la conservazione della biodiversità. Manuale operativo. APAT – Agenzia Nazionale per la protezione dell’ambiente e per i servizi tecnici, Roma. Manuali e linee guida, 34 (in Italian)
Burnham KP, Anderson DR (2002) Model selection and multi-model inference: a practical information-theoretic approach. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 488 pp
Den Boer PJ, van Huizen THP, Den Boer-Daanje W, Aukema B, Den Bieman CFM (1980) Wing polymorphism and dimorphism in ground beetles as stages in an evolutionary process (Coleoptera: Carabidae). Entomol Gen 6:107–134
Digweed SC, Currie CR, Cárcamo HA, Spence JR (1995) Digging out the “digging-in effect” of pitfall traps: influences of depletion and disturbance on catches of ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae. Pedobiologia 39:561–576
Eversham BC, Telfer MC (1994) Conservation value of roadside verges for stenotopic heathland Carabidae: corridors or refugia? Biodivers Conserv 3:538–545
Forman RTT (2000) Estimate of the area affected ecologically by the road system in the United States. Conserv Biol 14:31–35
Forman RTT, Alexander LE (1998) Roads and their major ecological effects. Annu Rev Ecol Syst 29:207–231
Gobbi M, Fontaneto D (2008) Biodiversity of ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) in different habitats of the Italian Po lowland. Agric Ecosyst Environ 127:273–276
Gobbi M, Rossaro B, Vater A, De Bernardi F, Pelfini M, Brandmayr P (2007) Environmental features influencing Carabid beetle (Coleoptera) assemblages along a recently deglaciated area in the Alpine region. Ecol Entomol 32:682–689
Gotelli NJ, Entsminger GL (2004) EcoSim: null models software for ecology. Version 7. Acquired Intelligence Inc. & Kesey-Bear. Jericho. http://garyentsminger.com/ecosim/index.htm
Halme E, Niemelä J (1993) Carabid beetles in fragments of coniferous forest. Ann Zool Fenn 30:17–30
Haskell DG (2000) Effects of forest roads on macroinvertebrates soil fauna of southern Appalachian Mountains. Conserv Biol 14:57–63
Hill MO, Gauch HG (1980) Detrended correspondence-analysis—an improved ordination technique. Vegetatio 42:47–58
Holland JM (2002) The agroecology of Carabid beetles. Intercept, Andover
Keller I, Largiadèr CR (2003) Recent habitat fragmentation caused by major roads leads to reduction of gene flow and loss of genetic variability in ground beetles. Proc R Soc Lond B 270:417–423
Koivula JM (2003) The forest road network—a landscape element affecting the spatial distribution of boreal carabid beetles (Coleoptera, Carabidae). In: Szyszko J et al (eds) How to protect or what we know about Carabid beetles. Warsaw Agricultural University Press, Warsaw, pp 287–299
Koivula JM (2005) Effects of forest roads on spatial distribution of boreal carabid beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae). Coleopt Bull 59:465–487
Koivula JM, Vermeulen HJW (2005) Highways and forest fragmentation—effects on Carabid beetles (Coleoptera, Carabidae). Landsc Ecol 20:911–926
Kotze DJ, O’Hara RB (2003) Species decline—but why? Explanations of carabid beetle (Coleoptera, Carabidae) declines in Europe. Oecologia 135:138–148
Lindroth CH (1961) Sandjägare och jordlöpare: fam. Carabidae, 2nd edn. Almqvist & Wiksell, Stockholm (In Swedish)
Lindroth CH (1985) The Carabidae (Coleoptera) of Fennoscandia and Denmark. Fauna Entomol Scand 15:1–232
Lövei GL, Sunderland KD (1996) Ecology and behaviour of ground beetles (Coleoptera, Carabidae). Annu Rev Entomol 41:231–256
Mader H-J, Schell C, Kornacker P (1990) Linear barriers to arthropod movements in the landscape. Biol Conserv 54:209–222
Magura T, Tóthmérész B, Lövei GL (2006) Body size inequality of carabids along an urbanisation gradient. Basic Appl Ecol 7:472–482
Niemelä J, Kotze DJ (2000) GLOBENET: the search for common anthropogenic impacts on biodiversity using Carabids. In: Brandmayr P et al (eds) Natural history and applied ecology of Carabid beetles. Pensoft, Sofia-Moscow, pp 241–246
Oksanen J, Kindt R, Legendre P, O’Hara B, Simpson GL, Henry M, Stevens H, Wagner H (2008) Vegan: community ecology package. R package version 1.13-2. http://vegan.r-forge.r-project.org/
Peters RH (1983) The ecological implications of body size. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
R Development Core Team (2008) R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna
Rainio J, Niemelä J (2003) Ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) as bioindicators. Biodivers Conserv 12:487–506
Saarinen K, Valtonen A, Jantunen J, Saarnio S (2005) Butterflies and diurnal moths along road verges: does road type affect diversity and abundance? Biol Conserv 123:403–412
Sapia M, Lövei G, Elzek Z (2006) Effects of varying sampling effort on the observed diversity of carabid assemblages in the Danglobe Project, Denmark. Entomol Fenn 17:345–350
ter Braak CJF (1986) Canonical correspondence analysis: a new eigenvector technique for multivariate direct gradient analysis. Ecology 67:1167–1179
ter Braak CJF (1987) The analysis of vegetation-environment relationships by canonical correspondence analysis. Vegetatio 69:67–77
ter Braak CJF (1992) Permutation versus bootstrap significance tests in multiple regression and ANOVA. In: Jöckel K-H, Rothe G, Sendler W (eds) Bootstrapping and related techniques. Springer Verlag, Berlin, pp 79–86
ter Braak CJF (1995) Ordination. In: Jongman RHG, ter Braak CJF, van Tongeren OFR (eds) Data analysis in community and landscape ecology (New ed.). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 91–173
ter Braak CJF, Prentice IC (1988) A theory of gradient analysis. Adv Ecol Res 18:271–317
Trombulak SC, Frissell CA (2000) Review of ecological effects of roads on terrestrial and aquatic communities. Conserv Biol 14:18–30
van Huizen THP (1979) Individual and environmental factors determining flight in Carabid beetles. Misc Pap Landbouwhogesch Wagening 18:199–211
Vermeulen R (1993) The composition of Carabid fauna on poor sandy road-side verges in relation with comparable open areas. Biodivers Conserv 2:331–350
Walker B, Steffen W (1997) An overview of the implications of global change for natural and managed terrestrial ecosystems. Conserv Ecol 1(2) (online). URL: http://www.consecol.org/vol1/iss2/art2/
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to Oddvar Hanssen (NINA) for helping with the identification of the specimens. We would like to thank Åsa Rydell from Leksand municipality and Uno Skog from Dalarna County for giving us permission to conduct the fieldwork. Lars Dahlkvist from Dalarna County kindly provided information about time of logging of the sampling plots. We are grateful to Vera Sandlund, Arne Moksnes, Sigrid Lindmo, Carolyn Baggerud, Anne Lohrmann and the Natural History Museum of Trondheim for helping us to find or lending us equipment. This study was funded by the Norwegian University for Science and Technology (CM, CBO, MH) and the Lise og Arnfinn Hejes scholarship (CBO, MH).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Melis, C., Olsen, C.B., Hyllvang, M. et al. The effect of traffic intensity on ground beetle (Coleoptera: Carabidae) assemblages in central Sweden. J Insect Conserv 14, 159–168 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10841-009-9240-3
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10841-009-9240-3