Abstract
We provide species lists and geographical occurrence records of the beetle family Passalidae for three subregions of the department of Sucre, northern Colombia. The sampling localities are lowland environments with typical tropical dry forest vegetation. We selected 15 sampling sites and examined decomposing trunks. We record seven species, four genera, and two tribes of Passalidae. The most abundant species were Passalus punctiger Lepeletier & Serville, 1825, P. interstitialis Eschscholtz, 1829, and P. interruptus (Linnaeus, 1758). We also provide new records for Passalus punctatostriatus Percheron, 1835, Paxillus leachi MacLeay, 1819, and Popilius marginatus (Percheron, 1835) in the department of Sucre. Veturius aspina Kuwert, 1898 was present only in the localities with well-preserved forests. Finally, the species number recorded in this study is low compared to other inventories in Neotropical regions.
Highlights
We provide new records for Passalus punctatostriatus Percheron, 1835, Paxillus leachi MacLeay, 1819, and Popilius marginatus (Percheron, 1835) in the department of Sucre
Many of the current conservation initiatives stem from biodiversity monitoring efforts and as a result of species inventories, data on species occurrences and geographical distributions can be provided for different localities
The most frequent genus in the region is Passalus Fabricius, 1792, represented by four species. This genus is abundant and widely recorded in many localities across Colombia with geographical distribution from sea level to 3800 m a.s.l. (Amat-García et al 2004; Jiménez-Ferbans et al 2018a). This genus comprises more than 50% of the known passalid species in Colombia (Jiménez-Ferbans et al 2018a)
Summary
Species inventories are important data sources for analyses of diversity patterns. Documenting species distributions and abundances is important for comparative analyses, and for quantifying population trends in response to habitat modification (Lawton et al 1998). Beetles belonging to the families Scarabaeidae, Passalidae, and Cerambycidae have been considered useful biological indicators of habitat modification due to their high vulnerability to habitat degradation (Skotland et al 2012; Ramírez-Hernández et al 2019). Passalidae are among those saproxylic beetles that live and feed in decomposing wood, accelerating the physical degradation of wood and the recycling of organic matter
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