Abstract
Because it is extremely time-consuming and costly to evaluate species richness of highly diverse taxa such as insects, cost-effective sampling strategies to estimate species richness are needed, especially when long-term monitoring is conducted. We found a sampling method that reduced the number of traps per site when estimating species richness of ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) in six forest sites in Sorachi, Hokkaido, northern Japan. We set 40 pitfall traps per site and collected ground beetles for 1-week periods in June, July, and August 2013. We evaluated the performance of three non-parametric species richness estimators [Jackknife2, Chao1, and the abundance-based coverage estimator (ACE)] to estimate species richness. Rarefaction curves showed that ACE was the only valid estimator to estimate species richness for all sites. Using ACE, we can reduce the number of traps to 30 or 20 from 40 traps per site if we allow a bias of 5 or 10%, respectively. This study suggests that non-parametric species richness estimators are useful in estimating species richness of ground beetles with reduced sample size.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Brose U (2002) Estimating species richness of pitfall catches by non-parametric estimators. Pedobiologia 46:101–107. https://doi.org/10.1078/0031-4056-00117
Brose U, Martinez ND (2004) Estimating the richness of species with variable mobility. Oikos 105:292–300. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0030-1299.2004.12884.x
Brose U, Martinez ND, Williams RJ (2003) Estimating species richness: sensitivity to sample coverage and insensitivity to spatial patterns. Ecology 84:2364–2377. https://doi.org/10.1890/02-0558
Burnham KP, Overton WS (1979) Robust estimation of population size when capture probabilities vary among animals. Ecology 60:927–936. https://doi.org/10.2307/1936861
Chao A (1984) Nonparametric-estimation of the number of classes in a population. Scand J Stat 11:265–270
Chao A, Lee SM (1992) Estimating the number of classes via sample coverage. J Am Stat Assoc 87:210–217. https://doi.org/10.2307/2290471
Chao A, Colwell RK, Lin CW, Gotelli NJ (2009) Sufficient sampling for asymptotic minimum species richness estimators. Ecology 90:1125–1133. https://doi.org/10.1890/07-2147.1
Colwell RK (2009) Biodiversity: concepts, patterns, and measurement. In: Levin SA, Carpenter SR, Godfray H, Charles J, Kinzig AP, Losos JB, Walker B, Wilcove DS, Morris CG (eds) The Princeton guide to ecology. Princeton University Press, Princeton, pp 257–263
Colwell RK (2013) EstimateS: statistical estimation of species richness and shared species from samples. Version 9. User’s Guide and application. http://purl.oclc.org/estimates. Accessed 6 Jan 2016
Colwell RK, Coddington JA (1994) Estimating terrestrial biodiversity through extrapolation. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 345:101–118. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.1994.0091
Gotelli NJ, Colwell RK (2001) Quantifying biodiversity: procedures and pitfalls in the measurement and comparison of species richness. Ecol Lett 4:379–391. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1461-0248.2001.00230.x
Gotelli NJ, Colwell RK (2011) Estimating species richness. In: Magurran AE, McGill BJ (eds) Biological diversity: frontiers in measurement and assessment, vol 12. Oxford University Press Inc., New York, pp 39–54
Iida T, Soga M, Hiura T, Koike S (2016) Life history traits predict insect species responses to large herbivore overabundance: a multitaxonomic approach. J Insect Conserv 20:295–304. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10841-016-9866-x
Iknayan KJ, Tingley MW, Furnas BJ, Beissinger SR (2014) Detecting diversity: emerging methods to estimate species diversity. Trends Ecol Evol 29:97–106. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2013.10.012
Jung JK, Kim ST, Lee SY, Park CG, Park JK, Lee JH (2014) A comparison of diversity and species composition of ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) between conifer plantations and regenerating forests in Korea. Ecol Res 29:877–887. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11284-014-1175-9
Koivula MJ (2011) Useful model organisms, indicators, or both? Ground beetles (Coleoptera, Carabidae) reflecting environmental conditions. Zookeys 100:287–317. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.100.1533
Koivula M, Kotze D, Hiisivuori L, Rita H (2003) Pitfall trap efficiency: do trap size, collecting fluid and vegetation structure matter? Entomol Fenn 14:1–14
Lawton JH, Bignell DE, Bolton B, Bloemers GF, Eggleton P, Hammond PM, Hodda M, Holt RD, Larsen TB, Mawdsley NA, Stork NE, Srivastava DS, Watt AD (1998) Biodiversity inventories, indicator taxa and effects of habitat modification in tropical forest. Nature 391:72–76. https://doi.org/10.1038/34166
Margules CR, Pressey RL (2000) Systematic conservation planning. Nature 405:243–253. https://doi.org/10.1038/35012251
Nakane T, Ohbayashi K, Nomura S, Kurosawa Y (1984) Iconographia insectorum Japonicorum Colore naturali edita Volumen II (Coleoptera). Hokuryukan, Tokyo (in Japanese)
Obrtel R (1971) Number of pitfall traps in relation to the structure of the catch of soil surface Coleoptera. Acta Entomol Bohemoslov 68:300–309
Ozaki K, Sayama K, Ueda A, Ito M, Tabuchi K, Hironaga T (2011) Short-term, efficient sampling strategies for estimating forest moth diversity using light traps. Ann Entomol Soc Am 104:739–748. https://doi.org/10.1603/An11030
Perner J (2003) Sample size and quality of indication—a case study using ground-dwelling arthropods as indicators in agricultural ecosystems. Agric Ecosyst Environ 98:125–132. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0167-8809(03)00074-4
Purvis A, Hector A (2000) Getting the measure of biodiversity. Nature 405:212–219. https://doi.org/10.1038/35012221
Rainio J, Niemelä J (2003) Ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) as bioindicators. Biodivers Conserv 12:487–506. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022412617568
Spence JR, Niemelä JK (1994) Sampling carabid assemblages with pitfall traps - the madness and the method. Can Entomol 126:881–894. https://doi.org/10.4039/Ent126881-3
Thiele H-U (1977) Carabid beetles in their environments. Springer, Berlin. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-81154-8
Ueno S, Kurosawa Y, Sato M (1985) The Coleoptera of Japan in color, vol II. Hoikusha, Osaka (in Japanese)
Walther BA, Moore JL (2005) The concepts of bias, precision and accuracy, and their use in testing the performance of species richness estimators, with a literature review of estimator performance. Ecography 28:815–829. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2005.0906-7590.04112.x
Woodcock BA (2005) Pitfall trapping in ecological studies. In: Leather S (ed) Insect sampling in forest ecosystems. Blackwell Science Ltd, Malden, pp 37–57. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470750513.ch3
Yamanaka S, Sayama K, Kuramoto S, Iida S, Yamaura Y, Ozaki K (2016) Effects of small-scale soil scarification under canopies on carabid beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) in conifer-hardwood mixed forests after selection logging in northern Japan. Jpn J Appl Entomol Zool 60:33–41. https://doi.org/10.1303/jjaez.2016.33 (in Japanese with English abstract)
Yamaura Y, Akashi N, Unno A, Tsushima T, Nagasaka A, Nagasaka Y, Ozaki K (2018) Retention Experiment for Plantation Forestry in Sorachi, Hokkaido (REFRESH): a large-scale experiment for retaining broad-leaved trees in conifer plantations. Bull For For Prod Res Inst 17:91–109. https://doi.org/10.20756/ffpri.17.1_91
Acknowledgements
We thank the officials of the Fishery and Forestry Department of Hokkaido Prefecture and the local branch of the Sorachi Forest Office for their help with the REFRESH project. We also thank A. Komatsu for sorting insect specimens. This study was supported by Mitsui & Co., Ltd. Environment Fund grant numbers R12-G2-225 and R15-0025 and JSPS KAKENHI grant numbers JP25252030 and JP18H04154.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Yamanaka, S., Hironaka, Y. & Ozaki, K. Cost-effective sampling for estimating species richness of ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) using pitfall traps: efficiency of non-parametric species richness estimators. Appl Entomol Zool 54, 231–238 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13355-019-00617-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13355-019-00617-1