ASSESSING GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION AND RELATIVE ABUNDANCE PATTERNS OF NATIVE AND NON-NATIVE LADY BEETLES (COCCINELLINAE) FROM HISTORIC OCCURRENCE DATA A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty In Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements For the Degree of Master of Science Department of Biology Faculty of Science University of Prince Edward Island Meghan Marriott 2012 © S.M. 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Canada CONDITIONS FOR THE USE OF THE THESIS The author has agreed that the Library, University o f Prince Edward Island, may make this thesis freely available for inspection. Moreover, the author has agreed that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the professor or professors who supervised the thesis work recorded herein or, in their absence, by the Chair of the Department or the Dean of the Faculty in which the thesis work was done. It is understood that due recognition will be given to the author of this thesis and to the University of Prince Edward Island in any use of the material in this thesis. Copying or publication or any other use of the thesis for financial gain without approval by the University of Prince Edward Island and the author's written permission is prohibited. Requests for permission to copy or to make any other use o f material in this thesis in whole or in part should be addressed to: Chair of the Department of Biology Faculty of Science University of Prince Edward Island 550 University Avenue, Charlottetown, PE Canada CIA 4P3 SIGNATURE PAGE 6 > >) 4 '(\\J ) REMOVED ABSTRACT Native species of lady beetles are believed to be declining in distribution and/or relative abundance across North America, but an accurate broad scale picture has been difficult to obtain. One source of data that could be tapped to assess broad distributional questions is the information associated with specimens in natural history collections. Natural history collection data have proven to be effective for assessing various ecological questions relating to species diversity and abundance patterns, changes in distribution, and in documenting the spread of invasive species for a wide variety of taxa. However, specimen data in collections may contain temporal and spatial gaps which can cause interpretation biases that vary with the type of collection, so collection data must be critically reviewed to assess its usability and limitations. The first goal of this study was to assess potential data gaps (and corresponding strengths) associated with lady beetle collection records from Atlantic Canada to determine whether these data can be used to determine long term distribution and relative abundance patterns for lady beetles in eastern Canada. Twenty-seven Atlantic Canadian collections representing four types of collections (Government, Museum, University and Private) were assessed for potential data gaps by comparing numbers of specimen records collected for different time periods, seasons, taxonomic groups (especially native vs. non-native species), and geographical areas for each type of collection using Mann-Whitney U-tests or Kruskal-Wallis tests. Each analysis was run for each collection type, and again with data combined from all collections to determine whether observed spatial or temporal differences could be minimized by combining collection data for multiple collection types. Individual collection types did show significant differences among these variables, indicating that use of data from individual collections, even large ones, results in data gaps that could interfere with interpretation of lady beetle distributions. However, differences (especially temporal gaps) among these variables were minimized, or were no longer significant when data from all collections were combined, indicating that biases could be minimized by including data from multiple collections. Therefore, the second goal of this study was to use data from multiple collections to assess temporal patterns in distribution and relative abundance in a suite of five native and five non-native lady beetle species in eastern Canada. Relative abundances for the 10 species were calculated by decade and compared using a G-test (likelihood ratio test) to assess changes in lady beetle populations overtime. Geographic area occupied by each species was calculated for each tim e period though 'rubber banding' in GIS software. Collection data showed a clear decline in relative abundance and geographic extent in four of the five native lady beetles studied, though timing of declines varied with species. In contrast, the non-native species showed a clear increase in relative abundance from the time of their establishment at least to the end of the study period in 2009, though three of the five species experienced range contractions after reaching peaks in abundance and area. This study provides strong evidence for the decline in several native species of lady beetles in eastern Canada, and does so over a wide geographic area. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Funding was provided for this project by a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Discovery Grant to D. Giberson and D. McCorquodale and a contract from Environment Canada (Committee on Endangered Species and Wildlife in Canada, COSEWIC). My sincere thanks to all the individuals who provided access to lady beetle collections throughout eastern Canada, as well as those who shared pre-existing databases (Table 3.1 in thesis), particularly Patrice Bouchard and the Canadian National Collection of Insects, Arachnids and Nematodes (CNC), for providing me with data for more than half of the ~19,600 specimens used in this study. Thanks to Dr. David McCorquodale, whose interest in lady beetles precipitated this study, for teaching me the finer points of insect collecting, specimen preservation and databasing; and Dr. Donna Giberson, for her seemingly endless patience and invaluable counsel. I would also like to thank Dr. Christian Lacroix and Dr. Christine Noronha for taking the time to be a part of my committee. A special thanks goes to my family and friends, who have given me the support I needed to persevere. I hope I have made them proud. TABLE OF CONTENTS TITLE PAGE....................................................................................................................................i CONDITIONS FOR THE USE OF THE THESIS...............................................................................ii PERMISSION TO USE POSTGRADUATE THESIS........................................................................ iii CERTIFICATION OF THESIS WORK.............................................................................................iv ABSTRACT.....................................................................................................................................v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.............................................................................................................vii LIST OF TABLES............................................................................................................................ x LIST OF FIGURES........................................................................................................................ xii GLOSSARY..................................................................................................................................xvi 1.0 INTRODUCTION AND LITERATURE REVIEW.....................................................................1 1.1 INTRODUCTION............................. 1 1.2 LITERATURE REVIEW........................................................................................................5