The question how animal body size changes along urban-rural gradients has received much attention from carabidologists, who noticed that cities harbour smaller species than natural sites. For Carabidae this pattern is frequently connected with increasing disturbance regimes towards cities, which favour smaller winged species of higher dispersal ability. However, whether changes in body size distributions can be generalised and whether common patterns exist are largely unknown. Here we report on body size distributions of carcass-visiting beetles along an urban-rural gradient in northern Poland. Based on samplings of 58 necrophages and 43 predatory beetle species, mainly of the families Catopidae, Silphidae, and Staphylinidae, we found contrary patterns of necrophages and predatory beetles. Body sizes of necrophages decreased towards the city centre and those of predators remained unchanged. Small necrophages and large predators dominated in abundance in the city centre. Necrophage body sizes appeared to be more regularly spaced in the city centre than expected from a random null model and in comparison to the rural pattern, pointing to increased competition.
The is insufficient knowledge of arthropod communities occurring in specific microhabitats. In this study, we characterize the arthropod assemblages inhabiting burrows of the common hamster (Cricetus cricetus L.) and factors that determine their diversity and abundance. We tested the following hypotheses: (1) arthropod assemblages are associated with a particular dominant vegetation occurring in the vicinity of burrows; (2) a correlation exists between fine-scale geographic distances among burrows and assemblage dissimilarity; and (3) the type of trap influences the sampling success of captured arthropods. We found 73 morphospecies belonging to 16 families in 109 burrows, most of which were in the families Staphylinidae (Coleoptera) and Parasitidae (Arachnida: Acari: Mesostigmata). The most abundant families were Staphylinidae, Cryptophagidae (Coleoptera), Parasitidae, and Macrochelidae (Mesostigmata) (78.89%). Among the identified species, we found Aleochara irmgardis (Staphylinidae) and Poecilochirus sexclavatus (Parasitidae) which had not yet been reported in Poland, and several other rare species. Meat-baited traps captured 64.34% more individuals, which were more diverse and species-rich than the non-baited control traps, but the former was more selective for saprophages, necrophages, and coprophages. The burrows located in areas overgrown by triticale (a hybrid of wheat and rye) were inhabited by 69.86% of the identified arthropod species, and these also had the highest abundance (64.07%) in comparison with other habitats. However, differences in sample size biased our results toward and overestimate arthropods associated with this vegetation. This study underlines that the species composition detected in burrows was affected by the methods used and hamster preferences for a specific habitat rather than the geographic proximity of the burrows. More extensive sampling across multiple habitats will be necessary to confirm our findings.
abstract. Piles of fresh cow and horse dung were placed in a pasture in Dziarny in north-east Poland. The differences between the beetle communities colonizing both types of dung at various stages of succession were analyzed. Beetles were sampled 2, 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 days after placing the piles of dung in the pasture. A total of 5 343 individuals belonging to 125 species and 10 families were collected in 24 samples. None of the species of beetles collected colonized exclusively one type of dung. Several taxa showed a clear preference for cow or horse dung. Beetle succession proceeded faster in horse dung and there were significant differences in the dominant species recorded in the two types of dung. The reasons for the reported patterns are discussed.
Atheta strandiella is recorded in four localities in northern Poland including two Baltic raised bogs, another record comes from the south of the country, from a montane bog. The occurrence of A. strandiella in Poland is not surprising, as the species was already recorded from neighboring countries, including Belarus, Czechia, and Germany. Numerous findings of A. strandiella in different mires of Poland, including the Baltic and montane raised bogs, show our limited and insufficient knowledge of beetles inhabiting these endangered habitats.
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