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Effects of interactive scale-dependent variables on beetle diversity patterns in a semi-arid agricultural landscape

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Abstract

Understanding species-diversity patterns in heterogeneous landscapes invites comprehensive research on how scale-dependent processes interact across scales. We used two common beetle families (Tenebrionidae, detrivores; Carabidae, predators) to conduct such a study in the heterogeneous semi-arid landscape of the Southern Judean Lowland (SJL) of Israel, currently undergoing intensive fragmentation. Beetles were censused in 25 different-sized patches (500–40,000 m2). We used Fisher’s α and non-parametric extrapolators to estimate species diversity from 11,125 individuals belonging to 56 species. Patch characteristics (plant species diversity and cover, soil cover and degree of stoniness) were measured by field transects. Spatial variables (patch size, shape, physiognomy and connectivity) and landscape characteristics were analyzed by GIS and remote-sensing applications. Both patch-scale and landscape-scale variables affected beetle species diversity. Path-analysis models showed that landscape-scale variables had the strongest effect on carabid diversity in all patches. The tenebrionids responded differently: both patch-scale and landscape-scale variables affected species diversity in small patches, while mainly patch-scale variables affected species diversity in large patches. Most of the paths affected species diversity both directly and indirectly, combining the effects of both patch-scale and landscape-scale variables. These results match the biology of the two beetle families: Tenebrionidae, the less mobile and more site-attached family, responded to the environment in a fine-grained manner, while the highly dispersed Carabidae responded to the environment in a coarse-grained manner. We suggest that understanding abiotic and biotic variable interactions across scales has important consequences for our knowledge of community structure and species diversity patterns at large spatial scales.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Jonathan Belmaker, Dan Blumberg, Ido Filin, Ofer Ovadia, Inon scharf, Efrat Shefer and two anonymous reviewers for their useful comments on different versions of this paper. This research project was partially supported by funds provided to the International Arid Lands Consortium (IALC), by the USDA Forest Service and by the USDA Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (grant #03R-20). The IALC was established in 1990 as a means to promote research, demonstrations, and training applied to development, management, restoration, and reclamation of arid and semiarid lands in North America, the Middle East, and elsewhere in the World.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Life Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, 84105, Israel

    Gal Yaacobi & Yaron Ziv

  2. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, 85721, USA

    Michael L. Rosenzweig

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  1. Gal Yaacobi
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  2. Yaron Ziv
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  3. Michael L. Rosenzweig
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Correspondence to Gal Yaacobi.

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Table 3 Carabidae and Tenebrionidae found in Bet-Govrin research area
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Yaacobi, G., Ziv, Y. & Rosenzweig, M.L. Effects of interactive scale-dependent variables on beetle diversity patterns in a semi-arid agricultural landscape. Landscape Ecol 22, 687–703 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-006-9061-7

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