Temporal and spatial patterns of tenebrionid beetles diversity in NW Patagonia, Argentina

SACKMANN, P. & G.E. FLORES

JOURNAL OF ARID ENVIRONMENTS

Academic Press

Año: 2009 vol. 73 p. 1095 - 1102

0140-1963

The spatial and temporal variation of abundance, rarefied richness and species composition of Tenebrionidae beetles in NW Patagonia were described. Beetles were collected using 450 pitfall traps arranged in 50, 100 m2 grid plots with nine traps each within a roughly 150 × 150 km area representative of the Subantartic-Patagonian transition of Argentina. The area included three different habitats: forest, scrub, and steppe. Five sampling periods, each 8-days long, were carried out in spring-summer between November 2004 and March 2006. A total of 30 species and 938 individuals of tenebrionids were collected. Total abundance was higher in November and January than in March, and species richness didn?t change along samplings. Species richness and composition differed between the scrub and steppe habitats. Also, two distinct assemblages inhabits at the north and south of the study area. There is little correlation (30%) between current environmental variables and species composition of assemblages. Historical factors might explain the observed pattern; however other environmental variables, like soil characteristics, deserve more study to fully understand the present tenebrionid species distribution.