Effects of Caragana scrubland fragmentation on finescale diversity ofgrounddwelling beetles in a desert landscape
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Key Words:grounddwelling beetles, desert landscape, insect diversity, habitat fragmentation
Abstract:There is increasing empirical evidence that habitat size and fragmentation play an important role in determining species diversity and distribution patterns. Due to a number of physical and other factors, the Caragana scrubland in the arid zone of central Ningxia displays a pattern of dot, patch and strip fragments separated by natural and cultivated forest. To evaluate the effects of fragmentation on biodiversity of the shrubland, grounddwelling beetles were studied using pitfall traps. A total of 336 individuals of grounddwelling beetles was captured, representing 29 species from 20 genera. The dominant family was Tenebrionidae. Microdera kraatzi kraatzi Skopin and Microdera kraatzi alashanica (Reitter) were the dominant species. A rarefaction curve analysis showed that the larger patches had higher species diversity. However, there were no significant differences between diversity indices for individual patches. Regression analyses of patch area on species and the number of individuals showed that the diversity of grounddwelling beetles was influenced by patch area. Habitat fragmentation decreased the diversity of grounddwelling beetles.