ЖУКИ-КАРАПУЗИКИ (COLEOPTERA, HISTERIDAE) УРБОЦЕНОЗІВ ХАРКОВА (УКРАЇНА)

Abstract

To date, about a 120 hundred clown beetle species from 32 genera are known from Ukraine. The validity of a species new to science ( Eudiplister ukrainicus Pozharov, 2011) described from the agroecosystems of Poltava region require verification. Based on personal and literature-derived data, 39 species of clown beetles have been registered in the transformed ecosystems of Ukraine. Of these, 12 species in six genera are known from Kharkiv City: Margarinotus (4 species), Hister (3 species), Atholus (2 species), and Gnathoncus, Hypocacculus , Saprinus with one species each. Individual abundance of the clown beetles in the Kharkiv urban coenoses averaged 0.2% out of the total number of collected ground-dwelling beetles. Only one species, Margarinotus purpurascens Herbst, 1792, reached the status of subdominant in some habitats, the other species being rare. Eight species were found at the garden-plots, and seven species in the city parks (six species were recorded from the Karpovskyi Sad, the other parks hosted three or four species each). Central and suburban loans were inhabited by three species only. In terms of habitat distribution, three species of collected clown beetles belonged to the group of meadow dwellers, three species to the steppe dwellers, and six species were classified as generalists. In terms of station preferences, we distinguished six copro-necrobiont species, four coprobionts, one botrobiont ( Gnathoncus suturifer ), and one stratobiont ( Margarinotus ventralis ) inhabiting decaying plant and fungi residues. Faunisitc similarity of the histerid assemblages of the urban ecosystems of Kharkiv and field agroecosystems of Forest-steppe zone of Ukraine is high. In our collection, eleven species out of twelve occurred in both city and fields, M. ventralis was the only species found exclusively in the city. This suggests that the ways of the fauna formation in the above-mentioned transformed ecosystems has been identical. Therefore, we suppose some species known from the agroecosystems ( Hister bissexstriatus Fabricius, 1801, H. helluo Truqui, 1852, H. quadrimaculatus Linnaeus, 1758, H. unicolor Linnaeus, 1758, M . carbonarius Hoffmann, 1803, Eudiplister planulus Menetries, 1848 and S. tenuistriatus Marseul, 1862) to be found in the urban areas as well. Key words: Coleoptera, Histeridae, species composition, number, ecological groups, urbocenoses, Kharkiv, Ukraine.