Effect of urbanization on ground beetles: Hypotheses and international outlook
Abstract
Urbanization is a world-wide process, which is a key factor influencing the biodiversity of the biosphere. Thus, it is important to study and understand the effect of urbanization on the biodiversity. This was the motivation of the Globenet project established in 1998: to investigate the effects of urbanization on the responses of carabid beetles (Carabidae, Coleoptera) across the Globe. Results from nine locations were reported: Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, Great-Britain, Japan, Canada, Hungary, Romania. Results were also reported on surface-dwelling spiders, isopods, and diplopods.
We reviewed the following hypotheses in the paper: intermediate disturbance hypothesis, increasing disturbance hypothesis, habitat specialist hypothesis, opportunistic species hypothesis, matrix species hypothesis, decreasing body size hypothesis, flightless hypothesis, habitat modification hypothesis, increased habitat heterogeneity hypothesis, homogenization hypothesis, feeding type hypothesis. Carabid abundance and species richness usually decreased from the rural forests towards the urban forest remnants and/or urban parks. Forest specialist species were more frequent in suburban and rural areas; open-habitat species were common in the urban parks. The urban areas were characterised by species capable of flight, while suburban and rural areas were characterised by larger-sized species and species incapable of flight.
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