Diss. (sammanfattning) Umeå : Sveriges lantbruksuniv., 2009. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.

This thesis builds on the work of previous coleopteran-based climatic reconstructions to recreate the environment and climate of the last 20,000 14C years of northwest Europe using the data and methods available within the Bugs Coleopteran Ecology Package, and aims to assess the ability of the BugsCEP results to provide information regarding events and anthropogenic changes on environment during the Anthropocene. Samples and data from 134 sites across northwest Europe and the British Isles were included in this study. The Mutual Climatic Range method and the BugStats module based on habitat code classifications were used to create the climatic and environmental reconstructions respectively, the results of which are provided in eight isotherm maps for 14.5-9 14C years BP and 2 EcoFigure graphs for 20,000 14C to present. While the results of some isotherm maps align with the changes described in previous studies, other climate trends are muted within these results. Likewise, some previously recognized environmental shifts in Europe are visible, whereas other major events are not distinguishable within the environmental record. An assessment of the environmental reconstruction results finds that though there is not sufficient material to support any proposed Anthropocene start dates, effects of anthropogenic influence upon the environment may be visible starting within the last 2,000 14C years; the results also show some support for the Vera Hypothesis.

No description available.

Modern methods for managing pine (Pinus sylvestris) create homogenized forests. This decreases nature’s potential for biodiversity and might threaten species in need of different types of milieu. The main purpose of this study was to investigate how important older pine trees are for biodiversity. In the Hall-Hangvar Reserve in the north-west part of Gotland, insects collected from traps showed that more species were found in old or dead trees compared to younger pine trees. A statistically significant difference was found for Coleoptera (beetles). The taxons of greatest interest for this study were Coleoptera and Hymenoptera (wasps). Certain families of Hymenoptera use ducts made by larvae from some families of Coleoptera.These larvae also serve as prey. Relevance concerning enviromental importance to species and diffrenences in inhabiting the three stages of pine trees was of importance.

Compared to natural forests, fast-growing plantations of exotic species such as Pinus radiata are often perceived as marginal habitat or unsuitable habitat for most native species. By studying Coleoptera (beetles) in a variety of landscape elements (pasture, native forest and different aged Pinus radiata stands) in a highly modified and fragmented landscape in New Zealand I aimed to determine the value of exotic plantation forests for native biodiversity, and how these species are affected by different sized clearfell harvest areas. Pitfall trap sampling of beetles showed that plantation forest stands can provide suitable complimentary habitat to native forest for many species. Rarefied species richness of Carabidae, Scarabaeidae and Scolytinae was not significantly different between habitats, however, habitat types differed significantly in their beetle community composition. Comparing different production habitats, Pinus radiata stands had a beetle community composition most similar to native forest. However, a small minority of species, e.g., Dichrochile maura, were restricted to native forest habitat highlighting the importance of retaining indigenous ecosystems within plantations. Unlike human modified habitats, native forests did not provide suitable habitat for exotic species. Clearfell harvesting is controversial and its impact on biodiversity is a key constraint for many forest certification programs, such as that administered by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). Despite this, no replicated manipulative experimental studies of the impact of different sized clearfell harvest areas on biodiversity have been undertaken at scales relevant to the New Zealand forest industry. One potential model of the impact of different clearfell harvest sizes is the concept of a threshold size. A threshold scenario may occur where clearfell harvest impacts increase at a rate disproportionate to the change in clearfell size over a small range of harvest areas, but impacts remain relatively unchanged either side of the threshold zone. I sampled Coleoptera in experimentally created 0.01, 0.05, 0.5, 5.0, 50 and 500 ha clearfells within Pinus radiata plantations in the central North Island of New Zealand. The wide range of clearfell harvest sizes, including some very small areas, such as 0.01 ha was instigated in an attempt to document potential clearfell harvest size thresholds. Rarefied native beetle species richness was higher in harvest areas compared to adjacent mature plantation stands. The beetle species richness in 5 ha and 500 ha harvest areas was significantly greater species than that in small 0.01 - 0.5 ha harvest areas. Although, the high beetle diversity recorded in 500 ha clearfells should be treated with caution due to confounding spatial autocorrelation. The degree of change in beetle community composition increased with increasing clearfell harvest area. Beetle assemblages in large harvest areas were less similar to their paired adjacent mature forest than smaller harvest areas. Although, constrained multivariate ordination techniques did show a short-term change in beetle species composition between recently clearfelled harvest areas of as little as 0.05 ha and adjacent mature P. radiata stands. The colonisation by open-habitat disturbance-adapted species was a key driver of this change, some species dispersed into clearfelled stands in significant densities within days post-harvest. Overall, there were no distinct short-term trends to the change in species richness as a function of increasing harvest area that would suggest an ecological impact threshold response. If short-term outcomes of clearfell harvesting are ameliorated by successful recolonisation, the long-term spatial arrangement of different aged stands becomes more important for the maintenance of biodiversity at the landscape level than short-term consequences of harvesting. By sampling selected beetle taxa in 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 and 26 year-old stands, I found that the abundance of seven out of eight of the species selected for analysis recovered to levels similar to those in adjacent mature forest within the timeframe of a single harvest rotation. Individual species utilised different aged stands, indicating different life-history strategies. For example, open-habitat, disturbance-adapted species such as Cicindela tuberculata and Sitona discoideus were prominent in young stands, and forest species such as Pycnomerus sophorae and Paracatops phyllobius were highly abundant in older stands. These alternative life-history strategies highlight the benefits of maintaining a mixture of different aged stands to increase biodiversity at the landscape level. This thesis fills an important gap in our knowledge of biodiversity in production landscapes. I show that plantation forests have value as complimentary habitat to native forest and they make an important contribution to the maintenance of biodiversity at the landscape level. Although clearfell harvesting is a severe disturbance to the forest ecosystem, the long-term recovery of beetle populations suggests that harvesting is not the key limiting factor to the enhancement of biodiversity in the plantation forests studied. This unusual situation is possibly the result of prior land-use history, as many plantations were established on degraded pastoral land, and harvest-sensitive species are unlikely to have survived this initial land-use change. As such, the severity of the long-term impacts of clearfell harvesting on biodiversity are likely to be context specific and will vary accordingly. The importance of spatial heterogeneity of habitat elements, including different aged plantation stands and native forest remnants, needs to be investigated in more detail to determine what limits biodiversity in this plantation landscape. Key points to consider are the proximity to, and proportion of, native forest cover in the landscape and the degree of connectivity among native remnants. It is these landscape-level attributes that may determine biodiversity at a regional scale, and more emphasis should be placed on landscape scale factors and there interaction with stand specific forest management practices. For example, the spatial mosaic of harvesting areas may need to be of a finer-scale when there are fewer native remnants within the landscape.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Alnarp : Sveriges lantbruksuniv., 2007. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Uppsala : Sveriges lantbruksuniv., 2004. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Uppsala : Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet, 2005. / Härtill 6 uppsatser.

Necrophagous beetles (Coleoptera) are very interesting and diverse ecological group of species with an immense impact on a natural nutrient cycle. Their main food source and breeding ground are carrions of vertebrates, human remains included. This relationship is often used in various ways by forensic entomology, but its potential was not jet fully reached, because our knowledge of biology and ecology of these beetles is very much incomplete. In this thesis I would like to explore geographic distribution, ecological requirements and developmental biology of several Central European necrophagous beetles as an outcome of their ecological and evolution strategies. For that I raised three broad research questions. Which factors are determining the local abundance of carrion beetles (Coleoptera: Silphidae)? How the current geographical distribution of open-landscape carrion beetles looks like in the Czech Republic? How the temperature affects the development of Sciodrepoides watsoni (Spence, 1813)? We found out that soil type can have significant effect on abundance of carrion beetles. They showed preference for chernozem -- Nicrophorus antennatus (Reitter), N. germanicus (Linnaeus), N. interruptus (Stephens), N. sepultor (Charpentier), Silpha obscura obscura (Herbst), T. sinuatus (Fabricius) or for fluvisol as did N. humator (Gleditsch). These findings support our hypothesis that soil type could be an important factor determining the occurrence of necrophagous European carrion beetles. To collect novel data of the current geographical distribution of carrion beetles we used 420 baited pitfall traps at 84 localities, and we collected 71 234 specimens of 15 silphid species. Among them, three endangered carrion beetle species listed on the Czech Red List of Invertebrates, were found. Two are vulnerable thermophilic species of open landscapes, Nicrophorus antennatus (Reitter, 1884) (collected around Louny and Židlochovice) and Nicrophorus germanicus (Linnaeus, 1758) (Louny, Zábřeh and Židlochovice). The third is the near threatened species, Nicrophorus sepultor Charpentier, 1825 (collected around Louny, Kutná Hora, Zábřeh and Židlochovice), which also prefers open landscapes. We studied development of common Holarctic beetle Sciodrepoides watsoni under five constant temperature regimes in laboratory (15, 18, 21, 25 and 28°C). Parameters of thermal summation models and their standard errors were calculated for each developmental stage (egg, three larval instars and pupae). We also find a new character for larval instar determination (head width) and proposed novel approach for future studies of size-based characters in instar determination.

O consumo de qualquer parte do organismo de um fungo denomina-se fungivoria e são raros os estudos que abordam a temática da interação trófica entre suas estruturas reprodutivas (basidiomas) e os insetos. Mesmo que seja um hábito alimentar freqüente entre os coleópteros, com muitas famílias obrigatoriamente fungívoras, pouco se conhece sobre a estruturação dessa assembléia. Entretanto, sabese que existem preferências por determinadas espécies de fungos, tanto para a postura dos ovos quanto para o próprio consumo. Algumas questões que este estudo aborda referem-se à riqueza e à especificidade dos besouros fungívoros. Adicionalmente investigarei a influência da taxonomia dos fungos, bem como da consistência e do sistema hifal dos basidiomas para o processo de seleção que as espécies de besouros realizam. Também foi verificado se a posição taxonômica dos besouros está relacionada com o grupo de fungos que estes utilizam ou com a consistência dos seus basidiomas. Foram realizadas oito coletas em um ambiente de Floresta Ombrófila Mista no Estado do Rio Grande do Sul, obtendo-se 376 indivíduos das Ordens Polyporales e Hymenochaetales. Estes espécimes foram mantidos individualizados em laboratório por três meses para a constante retirada dos besouros adultos e então dissecados. Todos os fungos que apresentaram besouros fungívoros associados (N = 207) foram identificados e totalizaram 40 espécies. Os coleópteros totalizaram 447 ocorrências e foram classificados em 90 morfoespécies e 20 famílias, sendo Ciidae e Staphylinidae as mais representadas. Os basidiomas foram classificados quanto às suas classes de consistência seguindo um gradiente de durabilidade e rigidez. A riqueza de besouros variou conforme a espécie do hospedeiro e não foram encontrados fatores que influenciam a variação de riqueza de besouros em fungos. A especificidade dos besouros não apresentou relação com a longevidade dos basidiomas. Também se verificou que a posição taxonômica dos fungos, bem como a consistência dos basidiomas, interferem na escolha do hospedeiro pelos besouros. Além disso, se observou que besouros mais relacionados filogeneticamente não utilizam uma assembléia de fungos mais semelhante nem basidiomas com consistências semelhantes. Isso demonstra que a habilidade em consumir as mesmas espécies não está tão relacionada com a filogenia dos besouros como ocorre com os herbívoros. / Fungivory is the consumption of any part of the fungi organism and just a few studies were done about the trophic interactions of its reproductive structures, so called basidiomes, and insects. Even though this is a disseminated habit among Coleoptera, which has many obligated fungivores families, little is known about its community organization. However, there have been works about feeding preferences and oviposing sites of some fungi species. Some of the questions of this study refer to richness and specificity of fungivores beetles on their host. It was also investigated the influence of fungi taxonomy, basidiomes consistency and hyphal system for the selection process of the beetle species, as well as the importance of the taxonomic position of the beetles regarding the host group they use and the basidiome´s consistency. The basidiomes of Polyporales and Hymenochaetales Orders were collected in an Araucaria angustifolia forest of Rio Grande do Sul State. It was obtained 376 fungal individuals, which were kept in the laboratory, individually separated in containers for three months, while the newly emerged beetles were captured, and the fungi were dissected afterwards. All individuals of fungi that had associations (207) were identified (40 species). It was found 447 occurcences of Coleoptera, which were classified in 90 morphospecies belonging to 20 families, with Ciidae and Staphylinidae being the most abundant. The basidiomes where classified by its consistency, following a longevity and hardness gradient. Beetle richness varied among fungal species and no factors that might influence the richness variation in fungi was found. Its specificity did not seem to be related to the longevity of the basidiomes. It was also verified that the fungus taxonomy as well as the consistency of its basidiomes demonstrated some importance for the process of host selection. Regarding the Coleoptera taxonomy, it was not verified that the more phylogenetic related ones use a more similar group of hosts or basidiomes that have similar consistency. This demonstrates that the ability to feed on the same species is not so related to the phylogeny of fungivore beetles as it occurs with herbivores.