Microhabitats - integrative environmental factors for species communities of Coleoptera in the karst landscape

Abstract

Recent studies have emphasized that some trogloxene species (species that are not specialized/obligate cave dwellers), were frequent in caves, and they did not occur randomly at the entrance of caves. Our research in a forested karst landscape in the Carpathians endorses and completes the previous results from different geographic zones. In addition to the previous studies, we analyzed the differences of beetle communities in various microhabitats (cave, microcave, limestone outcrops, riparian-sylvan and forest litter) in a protected karst landscape. We aimed to observe how the micorhabitats influenced the general structure and faunal richness of a karst landscape and what differences exists between species communities of different microhabitats. We observed significant differences in the trogloxene species associations between cave and microcave and the other microhabitats. An increase in the richness of trogloxene species was observed both in the cave and in the microcave, from April to July, in different associations of species and functional trophic categories. We identified species belonging to eight functional trophic categories, distributed differently among microhabitats. A comparison of the species richness and species communities between analyzed microhabitats is presented. The influence of the microhabitats on the species diversity and the species community dynamics is pointed out.