The effects of scrub management on the ground beetles of oolitic limestone grassland at Castor Hanglands national nature reserve, Cambridgeshire, UK

Abstract

The effects of different scrub management regimes on the structure of ground beetle communities in oolitic limestone grassland at Castor Hanglands National Nature Reserved were analysed over the course of one complete season using pitfall trapping. Communities were studied at eight sampling sites comprising four plots cleared sequentially, over four years, from each of two different scrub clearance regimes. The ground beetle communities from these plots were compared with those from four grassland plots each separated by two years in an eight-year cutting rotation of scrub management. Species incidence and catch data were ordinated using detrended correspondence analysis to investigate the effects of the different management regimes on the beetle communities present. Two sites not included in these analyses were also sampled and their relative position in the incidence ordination was predicted from the ground beetle species present and from site environmental data. The implications of these results for the conservation of limestone grassland and the potential for using ground beetle data in monitoring conservation management practice are discussed.