Rove beetles respond heterogeneously to urbanization

Abstract

Effects of urbanization on rove beetles were studied along a rural-suburban-urban forested gradient characterized by increasing human disturbance in and around Debrecen city (Hungary). Three classical and six novel hypotheses regarding the response of species to urbanization were tested. We found that overall species richness increased significantly with decreasing urbanization (i) as it is predicted by the increasing disturbance hypothesis, and contradicting (ii) the intermediate disturbance hypothesis that predicts the highest species richness in the moderately disturbed suburban area. (iii) The number of forest-associated species was significantly lower in the urban area compared to suburban and rural areas, as predicted by the habitat specialist hypothesis. All of the proposed novel hypotheses are about habitat alteration caused by the urbanization were corroborated. The (iv) richness of hygrophilous species was the highest in the rural area (hygrophilous species hypothesis), while (v) the number of thermophilous species was higher in the urban area (thermophilous species hypothesis). The richness of species directly or indirectly feeding on decaying organic materials ((vi) saprophilous, (vii) phytodetriticol, (viii) myrmecophilous, (ix) mycetophilous species hypotheses) was also highest in the rural area compared to the urban one. We stress that overall species richness is not the most appropriate indicator of the impacts of urbanization and accompanying disturbance on these beetles. Instead, habitat affinity and ecological traits of the species give more information about what habitat properties and environmental variables change drastically during urbanization.