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Fire and grazing, two drivers in predatory beetle diversity

Frietsch, Henrik (2020) BIOY01 20192
Degree Projects in Biology
Popular Abstract
Fire and grazing, a disaster or opportunity?

Due to climate change, disturbances such as forest fires are expected to see an increase in frequency in the 21st century. Fires can increase species diversity since it can create habitats for early successional species. At least if it does not happen too often. Imagine living in a house that burns down every year, it would not be a very nice place to live in. Another disturbance is grazing, which can affect the local vegetation in the same way as fire can. A modest intensity can provide opportunities for new species to get a foothold. However, if too intense and nothing would be able to recover. Again, imagine having your roof removed constantly.

Rove and ground beetles (Fig 1.) are... (More)
Fire and grazing, a disaster or opportunity?

Due to climate change, disturbances such as forest fires are expected to see an increase in frequency in the 21st century. Fires can increase species diversity since it can create habitats for early successional species. At least if it does not happen too often. Imagine living in a house that burns down every year, it would not be a very nice place to live in. Another disturbance is grazing, which can affect the local vegetation in the same way as fire can. A modest intensity can provide opportunities for new species to get a foothold. However, if too intense and nothing would be able to recover. Again, imagine having your roof removed constantly.

Rove and ground beetles (Fig 1.) are predatory beetles that have well-established taxonomic families with many distinct species. They are known to be susceptible to changes in their habitat and being easily caught by digging down medium-sized cups into the ground, which unsuspecting beetles may fall into. Because of this, these beetle species can be used as indicators of how diverse the predatory beetle community on the forest floor is.

In my project, I have been examining the consequences of fire and grazing and how they have affected the local predatory beetle community in the boreal forest of Oulanka on the northern Finland-Russia border.

Findings

By comparing the collected beetles against the measured vegetation data, it was revealed that litter and moss cover had a positive relationship with both rove and ground beetle species. This indicates that the more of the forest floor that is covered by litter and moss, the more species are likely to be found in an area. Lingonberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea) appeared to have the exact opposite effect on the predatory beetles, meaning that higher lingonberry shrubs led to few numbers of species.

So, what does this mean for the future? In one sense, if the occurrence of forest fires were to increase, litter roaming predatory beetle species may decrease, since their habitat would be destroyed and not have enough time to recover. The reduction of lingonberry height was the only thing that appeared to have a positive effect, and therefore the beetle community in areas with high lingonberry shrubs may see an increase in diversity if the intensity of fire and grazing increased.

For future studies, I suggest that more areas with similar environments are looked into to get a bigger picture of how fire and grazing affects ground living predatory beetles. As well as an even more detailed recording of the vegetation.

Bachelor’s project for Biology 30 hp 2020
Department of Biology, Lund University
Supervisors: Pål Axel Olsson, Therese Löfroth
Department of Biology, Lund University, Department of Wildlife, Fish, and Environmental studies, SLU Umeå (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Frietsch, Henrik
supervisor
organization
course
BIOY01 20192
year
type
M2 - Bachelor Degree
subject
language
English
id
9006832
date added to LUP
2020-03-18 11:15:03
date last changed
2020-03-18 11:15:03
@misc{9006832,
  author       = {{Frietsch, Henrik}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Fire and grazing, two drivers in predatory beetle diversity}},
  year         = {{2020}},
}