Forty years of carabid beetle research in Europe – from taxonomy, biology, ecology and population studies to bioindication, habitat assessment and conservation

By

Kotze, D. Johan
Brandmayr, Pietro
Casale, Achille
Dauffy-Richard, Emmanuelle
Dekoninck, Wouter
Koivula, Matti J.
Lovei, Gabor
Mossakowski, Dietrich
Noordijk, Jinze
Paarmann, Wilfried
Pizzoloto, Roberto
Saska, Pavel
Schwerk, Axel
Serrano, Jose
Szyszko, Jan
Taboada Palomares, Angela
Turin, Hans
Venn, Stephen
Vermeulen, Rikjan

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2011

Original Publication

ZooKeys

Volume

100

Pages

55-148

Subjects

ant feeding , bioindicators , Biology , Carabidae , Conservation , Dispersal , ectoparasitism , ground beetle , Habit , life history , long-term research , pitfall trapping , Population Dynamics , predation on amphibians , rhythms , seed feeding , Statistics , systematics

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia, Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.100.1523

 

Abstract

‘Carabidologists do it all’ (Niemelä 1996a) is a phrase with which most European carabidologists are familiar. Indeed, during the last half a century, professional and amateur entomologists have contributed enormously to our understanding of the basic biology of carabid beetles. The success of the field is in no small part due to regular European Carabidologists’ Meetings, which started in 1969 in Wijster, the Netherlands, with the 14th meeting again held in the Netherlands in 2009, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the first meeting and 50 years of long-term research in the Dwingelderveld. This paper offers a subjective summary of some of the major developments in carabidology since the 1960s. Taxonomy of the family Carabidae is now reasonably established, and the application of modern taxonomic tools has brought up several surprises like elsewhere in the animal kingdom. Progress has been made on the ultimate and proximate factors of seasonality and timing of reproduction, which only exceptionally show non-seasonality. Triggers can be linked to evolutionary events and plausibly explained by the “taxon cycle” theory. Fairly little is still known about certain feeding preferences, including granivory and ants, as well as unique life history strategies, such as ectoparasitism and predation on higher taxa. The study of carabids has been instrumental in developing metapopulation theory (even if it was termed differently). Dispersal is one of the areas intensively studied, and results show an intricate interaction between walking and flying as the major mechanisms. The ecological study of carabids is still hampered by some unresolved questions about sampling and data evaluation. It is recognised that knowledge is uneven, especially concerning larvae and species in tropical areas. By their abundance and wide distribution, carabid beetles can be useful in population studies, bioindication, conservation biology and landscape ecology. Indeed, 40 years of carabidological research have provided so much data and insights, that among insects - and arguably most other terrestrial organisms - carabid beetles are one of the most worthwhile model groups for biological studies.