Carabid Beetles (Coleoptera, Carabidae) as Indicatorsof Hydrological Site Conditions in Floodplain Grasslands

✍ Scribed by Michael Gerisch; Arno Schanowski; Wolfgang Figura; Bernd Gerken; Frank Dziock; Klaus Henle

• Book ID: 102282624
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2006
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 186 KB
• Volume: 91
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1434-2944
• DOI: 10.1002/iroh.200610888

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

The relationship of carabid beetle species occurrence patterns and environmental variables characterising the hydrological regime has been studied at the River Elbe in Central Germany. Both flood duration and groundwater depth had major influence on species assemblages as the ordination of study plots mainly followed a gradient along these two variables. The simultaneous ordination of the plots according to species occurrence and environmental parameters showed a highly significant joint structure with the first two axes of a co‐inertia analysis, explaining >98% of the variance. A total of 27 species out of 129 caught fulfilled criteria of fidelity and specificity to the plots of the five clusters revealed by their abiotic conditions and were sufficiently abundant to be suitable indicators for one or a combination of clusters of plots. (© 2006 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)