Carabidae of Mountains and Islands: Data on the Evolution of Isolated Faunas, and on Atrophy of Wings

Using Malaise traps to sample ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae)

“…Past researchers have recognized the importance of flight to the dispersal of carabids and the prevalence of macropterous species in unstable habitats (Darlington 1943;Boer 1970;Cardenas and Bach 1992). Cardenas and Bach (1992) found a frequently flooded site to contain predominantly macropterous carabid species, while a nearby stable environment had many apterous and brachypterous forms.…”

To fly or not to fly: Factors influencing the flight capacity of carabid beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae)

“…Thus the macropterous individuals were homozygous recessive and brachypterous individuals were heterozygous or homozygous dominant (Lindroth, 1946). Darlington (1943) proposed a simple mechanism for the spread of brachyptery in a population, whereby after Jackson (1933) reported that many beetle species, particularly in the families Curculionidae and Chrysomelidae, possess fully developed wings but non-functional fl ight muscles and it has been suggested (Darlington, 1943;Thiele, 1977), and confi rmed (Tietze, 1963), that the same is also true of many carabid species. Darlington (1943) assumed that all Carabidae are descended from full-winged ancestors, as did Den Boer (1971), and that the majority of extant species are fl ight capable.…”

“…Thiele (1977) suggested that these have subsequently evolved into polymorphic and dimorphic species. Whilst mountains and islands have been reported as having high proportions of brachypterous carabid species, there are also examples of areas with 100% full-winged species, such as the Barro Colorado wet lowland rainforest of Panama (Darlington, 1943). Darlington also found that arboreal and hygrophilic carabid species are almost invariably full-winged and suggested that this was due to the necessity of frequent dispersal in patchy and unstable habitats.…”

Assumption 0 Analysis: Comparative Phylogenetic Studies in the Age of Complexity1,2,3

“…At nearly the same time the maximum vicariance paradigm emerged, Erwin (1979Erwin ( , 1981 proposed the taxon pulse hypothesis as a model incorporating both dispersal and vicariance. Erwin's model stemmed from an idea proposed by Darlington (1943), later named the ''taxon cycle'' by Wilson (1959Wilson ( , 1961.…”