Abstract
The study of biodiversity of Chrysomelidae in Mexico and its variation within ecological gradients has increased recently, although important areas in the country remain to be explored. We conducted a faunistic inventory and analyzed the elevational and temporal variation of leaf beetle communities in the Sierra de San Carlos, in the state of Tamaulipas, in northeastern Mexico. This is an area with high to extreme priority for conservation, and due to its insular geographical position and to the vegetational communities present, it must be considered as a sky island. We selected seven sample sites distributed in different elevations within three localities, and comprising different vegetational communities. At each site, we randomly delimited 12 sample plots of 400 m2 where sampling was conducted by entomological sweep netting and collecting directly by hand. Sampling was conducted monthly at each plot, for a total of 1,008 samples between February 2013 and January 2014. By the end of the study, we had obtained a total of 3,081 specimens belonging to six subfamilies, 65 genera, and 113 species, with Trichaltica scabricula (Crotch, 1873) being recorded for first time in Mexico. Species richness was less than the values observed at other studies conducted in the same region, which is attributed to differences in the number of plant species and to the insular location of Sierra de San Carlos; however, the higher diversity values suggest a higher quality of natural resources and vegetational communities. No consistent pattern of leaf beetle communities was correlated with elevation, although higher values of species richness and diversity were obtained at the highest elevation site. The seasonal gradient showed that the rainy season is most favorable for leaf beetle communities. We found that species composition was different between sites and months, and also that there exists a significant association between the abundance obtained at each site and particular months. These results highlight the importance of different microhabitats for species distribution, and suggest that each species of Chrysomelidae has a differential response to environmental factors that vary within the elevational gradient and according to seasons. Also, we confirm and emphasize the important status of Sierra de San Carlos as a key natural area for biological conservation.
Highlights
Chrysomelidae, whose members are known as leaf beetles, is one of the most diverse taxa within Coleoptera, with more than 35,000 to 40,000 described species worldwide (Jolivet et al 2009)
Slope value of the Clench Model suggests that faunistic inventory in Sierra de San Carlos was Elevation* 500 (S7) 550 (S1) 730 (S5) 760 (S2) 820 (S6) 960 (S3) 1080 (S4) Season* Early dry season (EDS) Late dry season (LDS) Early rainy season (ERS) Late rainy season (LRS) Total
The 113 species of Chrysomelidae recorded in this study document that the Sierra de San Carlos represents a proportion close to 50% of the total leaf beetle species richness presently reported from Tamaulipas (Niño-Maldonado et al 2014a) and 5% of the total reported Mexican leaf beetle fauna (Ordóñez-Reséndiz et al 2014)
Summary
Chrysomelidae (excluding Bruchinae or seed beetles), whose members are known as leaf beetles, is one of the most diverse taxa within Coleoptera, with more than 35,000 to 40,000 described species worldwide (Jolivet et al 2009). Leaf beetles have been used as indicators of regional biodiversity and environmental quality, and for monitoring changes in natural areas (Farrell and Erwin 1988, Flowers and Hanson 2003, Kalaichelvan and Verma 2005, Linzmeier et al 2006, Baselga and Novoa 2007, Aslan and Ayvaz 2009). Because of their importance, numerous and detailed taxonomical works on Chrysomelidae had been conducted in North America north of Mexico, Central America, and South America (Riley et al 2003). Faunistic studies have been increasing for the Mexican leaf beetle fauna
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