Coleoptera: Carabidae) and a Preliminary List of Carabids from the Great Basin National Park
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UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Previously Published Works Title Additions to the knowledge of Nevada carabid beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) and a preliminary list of carabids from the Great Basin National Park. Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0hj8557b Journal Biodiversity data journal, 5(5) ISSN 1314-2828 Authors Will, Kipling Madan, Riva Hsu, Han Hsuan Publication Date 2017 DOI 10.3897/bdj.5.e12250 Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Biodiversity Data Journal 5: e12250 doi: 10.3897/BDJ.5.e12250 Research Article Additions to the knowledge of Nevada carabid beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) and a preliminary list of carabids from the Great Basin National Park Kipling Will‡‡, Riva Madan , Han Hsuan Hsu‡ ‡ University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, United States of America Corresponding author: Academic editor: Lyubomir Penev Received: 13 Feb 2017 | Accepted: 08 Jun 2017 | Published: 13 Jun 2017 Citation: Will K, Madan R, Hsu H (2017) Additions to the knowledge of Nevada carabid beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) and a preliminary list of carabids from the Great Basin National Park. Biodiversity Data Journal 5: e12250. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.5.e12250 Abstract Background Additions to the list of Carabidae known for Nevada, USA and carabid beetles found in the Great Basin National Park, NV are reported with notes on ecology and identification resources. New information For 79 species of carabids, we present 57 new state records, two state records previously reported in online resources, one confirmation of a previous questionable record for the state, and report 22 records for the Great Basin National Park that includes three new state records. © Will K et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. 2 Will K et al Keywords ground beetles, checklist, Western USA beetle fauna Introduction Carabids of Nevada Carabidae is family of beetles that have a cosmopolitan distribution and are often very common in the United States. Surprisingly, the number of published records of carabid species from Nevada is staggeringly low. In the recent catalog of North American carabid beetles (Bousquet 2012) the total number of species known for Nevada placed the state as 49th (242 species), only surpassing Delaware (206 species). For comparison, among the 50 US states, Delaware is ranked 49th for total land area, with only 644,718 ha (2,489 sq mi.), while Nevada is ranked 7th with 28,635,092 ha (110,560.71 sq mi.). Compared to adjacent states (California, Oregon, Arizona, Idaho, and Utah) Nevada had only about a third to three quarters the number of species reported. These discrepancies suggested to us that the Nevada fauna was significantly underreported. To better document Nevada’s biodiversity, our study aimed to expand the checklist of the carabid fauna in Nevada by identifying specimens from several western North American Entomological collections and undertaking collecting trips to Nevada. The Ecologial Setting in Nevada The state of Nevada is composed of five ecoregions (U.S. Geological Survey, Department of the Interior, U.S.A 2006, Nevada Fish & Wildlife Office 2014). Three cover the majority of the state: the Northern, Central, and Mojave Basins and Ranges, while two ecoregions, Sierra Nevada Range and Arizona-Mexico Plateau, comprise a relatively small portion of Nevada. Within these ecoregions Nevada’s seasonally hot, dry climate produces a plethora of different ecosystems that support mainly shrubs and grasses at low and medium elevations and conifer trees at higher elevations; however, pockets of isolated environments allow endemic species of plants to thrive and provide habitat for a variety of carabid beetles. The largest ecoregion in Nevada is the Central Basin and Range. This ecoregion is composed mainly of north-south oriented mountain ranges alternating with dry shrub and grass covered basins. At mid elevations, the mountains are characterised with scattered forests of woodland and mountain brush. Due to the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Nevada’s western region is under a rain shadow and as a result the dry-tolerant piñon-juniper woodlands are common as are stands of ponderosa, lodgepole and white pine. At high elevations (above 2700 m), seasonal moisture supports the growth of high elevation conifers species and aspen groves, with sagebrush and mountain-mahogany in the understory. The precipitation at this elevation also provides perennial streams and ponds with water. Additions to the knowledge of Nevada carabid beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) ... 3 In the Pleistocene much of central Nevada was under what was one of the largest lakes in North America, Lake Lahontan. All that remains of the lake now are playas and a few remnants lakes. The Central Basin and Range is now high desert plain with the exception of small, often seasonal wetlands, typically alkali flats or saline lakes that are replenished by seasonal rains and runoff. In the west and central part of the region there are characteristic rolling valleys with mountian ranges that have alluvial fan outwashes flowing into the lower basins. Diversity in this region is rather low due to its aridity. With a few exceptions, there are almost no continuous woodlands. The highest elevations in this region, those that extend above treeline, are densely covered with mountain big sagebrush, western serviceberry, snowberry, and low sagebrush, but very few trees. The easternmost part of the Central Basin and Range ecoregion consists of sagebrush valleys, woodlands, mountains, and saline basins. Much of the soil in this region is shallow due to a combination of heavy summer rains and the limestone and dolomite bedrock. As a result, the sagebrush valleys consist of grasses and brush capable of tolerating shallow soils. The woodland zones consist of mainly piñon and juniper forests. Historically, these forests only occurred at higher elevations due to annual natural fires, but fire suppression has allowed the forests to move further down towards the sagebrush valleys. In the more mountainous areas, for example Great Basin National Park (GBNP), various conifers (white fir, Douglas fir, Engelmann spruce, bristlecone pines) dominate. Although high enough to form an alpine zone, climate conditions do not favour the retention of water as most of it rapidly flows out via springs and streams. The GBNP includes a range of the typical floral zones for the region with sagebrush dominated lower elevations, rising through juniper, piñon pine, ponderosa pine, and grassy mountain meadows. Above treeline the habitat is rocky with few plants. Situated on Wheeler Peak, which rises to nearly 4000 m elevation, is a small alpine glacier, the remnant of a more extensive glacier from the last glacial maximum (LGM). Erosional deposition from the glacier's meltwater is evident in much of the of the most-visited parts of the park. The Northern Basin and Range, which is shared with Oregon and Idaho, is a cooler, more mesic, and less mountainous than the Central Basin and Range. This ecoregion consists of high lava plateaus to the northeast, high lava plains to the northwest and semi-arid uplands scattered across northern Nevada. The high lava plateau receives more precipitation and experiences colder winters resulting in cool season grasses such as bluebunch wheatgrass and Idaho fescue. The high lava plains, a large sagebrush steppe, are very similar to the high lava plateau in climate and vegetation, but have many ephemeral pools that are home to a diverse fauna and flora. In the far south of Nevada lies the Mojave Basin and Range, a region extending from California to Arizona and southwestern Utah. The warmer, drier climate and milder winters favours a flora dominated by creosote bush at lower elevations. This desert region is far from uniform and is comprised of three subregions: the Amargosa Desert, creosote-bush dominated basins, and arid footslopes. The Amargosa desert is in the rain shadow of the Spring Mountains and is an internally-drained basin with the greatest temperature extremes. Most of the flora is dry adapted creosote bush and bursage. Further east, creosote bush-dominated basins are scattered between the Mojave Desert mountain 4 Will K et al ranges, grasslands, blackbrush plains, Joshua trees woodlands, and cactus dominated areas. The Spring Mountains prominently rise above the basin habitats with Mount Charleston reaching over 3600 m elevation. Along the elevational gradient various scrub and bush zones lead to juniper, piñon pine, mountain mahogany, culminating in montane conifers. The Sierra Nevada ecoregion is a mountainous region that is mainly in California but a small part of this ecoregion extends into Nevada along its western border, notably including the foothills of the Carson Range. At mid-elevations, the dry forest is composed of a mix of conifers, including California white fir, incense cedar, Jeffrey pine, with an understory of sagebrush, antelope bitterbrush, and manzanita. At elevations between 7500-9500 ft, heavy snowfall and summer droughts favours vegetation adapted to season extremes like red fir, white pine and mountain hemlock. Though a relatively small area, this extension of the Sierra Nevada fauna is significant as it is not found elsewhere in the state of Nevada. The Arizona-Mexico Plateau (Ruhlman et al. 2010) is the ecoregion with the smallest area among the five in Nevada. It is represented by an area of the Virgin Mountains at the Nevada and Arizona border, which is the western limit of the region that extends east into New Mexico. The region has semiarid grassland and desert-scrub, piñon pine uplands, and ponderosa pine at the highest elevations. Materials and Methods Specimen sources and identification methods Specimens examined were from the following institutions: Cornell University Insect Collection (CUIC), Ithaca, NY; Essig Museum of Entomology (EMEC), University of California, Berkeley; Monte L.