Russon, H. and J. M. Woltz. 2014. Movement patterns of carabid beetles between heterogenous crop and noncrop habitats. The Great Lakes Entomologist 47:186-202.

Citable PDF link: https://lter.kbs.msu.edu/pub/3428

Habitats adjacent to crop fields can increase natural enemy populations by providing additional food, shelter and overwintering sites. While many studies have focused on the role of non-crop borders for supporting natural enemies, here we investigate the influence of adjacent crop habitats as well. We monitored the movement of carabid beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) between wheat fields and adjacent crop and non-crop habitats using bi-directional pitfall traps. We found greater movement of carabids from corn into wheat fields than from forest and soybean, with intermediate levels of movement from roadside vegetation. Addi-tionally, significantly more carabids were captured moving into corn from wheat than into any other habitat. We also found that carabid community assemblages at habitat borders were different from those in the interior of wheat fields. Our findings suggest that agricultural ecosystems composed of a variety of both non-crop and crop habitats are necessary to maintain carabid abundance and diversity.

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