Ecology and conservation of the Dutch ground beetle fauna

About this book

Over the past decades, large amounts of data about carabids have been collected in the Netherlands, initially for the purpose of creating distribution maps for the country. In addition to information from collections and faunistic publications, a significant amount of data came from ecological studies using pitfall traps. Because of the rich tradition of carabidological research in the Netherlands, an exceptionally large database of these pitfall data is available. The database is a mix of approximately 1,500 short-term samples and circa 4,400 so-called 'year-samples', for which pitfalls were functional during the whole activity period of ground beetles in spring and autumn. These year-samples came from 2,850 sites, covering the period of 1953-2018, and represent all habitats on the Dutch landscape. These data offer an unusual view of the presence and activity of this common insect family. The data gathered from pitfall trapping is summarised and provides a fresh integrated perspective about the Dutch ground beetle fauna. The characteristic species composition of 17 habitat groups is described in detail. Over 320 species present in the database have been classified into six main g…