Abstract
The conservation of biodiversity is increasingly dependent on human-altered habitats. In a fragmented forest landscape in northern Costa Rica within the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor, an area of great conservation importance, we compared the diversity and composition of ground-dwelling beetle communities in five habitat types along a gradient of increasing disturbance: primary forest, logged forest, secondary forest, plantation (Gmelina arborea) and pasture. Using pitfall trapping we captured a total of 1,877 beetles (Coleoptera), comprising 422 morphospecies in 26 families. The plantation sites had the lowest number of species followed by secondary forest and pasture. Multivariate analysis separated the beetle fauna according to land use, and suggested that only the logged forest maintains a similar species assemblage to primary forest. However, each habitat harboured a number of unique species indicating the conservation value of the mosaic of habitats found in fragmented landscapes. Our results suggest that to maintain forest beetle species diversity it is essential that areas of natural forest are conserved. However, other land uses also provide beetle habitats and in fragmented areas active management to maintain a mosaic of land uses will contribute to the conservation of beetle diversity.
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Acknowledgements
This work was financed by the Department of Geography, University of Edinburgh and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH), Edinburgh. Fieldwork was funded by the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, the Tropical Agriculture Association, and the University of Edinburgh Small Projects Grant Trust. It would not have been possible without the assistance of CODEFORSA (the Commission for Forestry Development, San Carlos, Costa Rica), particularly Jhonny Mendez and Jose Luis Guzman, MINAE (the Ministry of Environment and Energy, Costa Rica) who gave permission to undertake this research (Licence number 0023108), Manuel Zumbado and others at INBio (National Institute for Biodiversity, Costa Rica), the landowners of the field sites in northern Costa Rica and Julia Vargas for her hospitality during fieldwork. Michelle Jones and John Healey, School of the Environment and Natural Resources, University of Wales Bangor, made valuable suggestions for improving an early version of the manuscript.
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Gormley, L.H.L., Furley, P.A. & Watt, A.D. Distribution of ground-dwelling beetles in fragmented tropical habitats. J Insect Conserv 11, 131–139 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10841-006-9026-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10841-006-9026-9