Life-History Traits of Ground Beetles (Coleoptera, Carabidae) Say No
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PERIODICUM BIOLOGORUM UDC 57:61 VOL. 118, No 3, 185–194, 2016 CODEN PDBIAD DOI: 10.18054/pb.2016.118.3.3915 ISSN 0031-5362 original research article Do traditional land rehabilitation processes improve habitat quality and function? Life-history traits of ground beetles (Coleoptera, Carabidae) say no. Abstract ToMasz skaLski1 reNaTa kęDzior2 Background and purpose: In the thermal power station industry, arTur szWaLec2 waste is deposited on various types of slag heaps, which should be rehabili- paWeł Mundała2 tated in order to restore ecosystem functioning. Traditional restoration proc- 1 Department of Entomology, Institute of Zoology esses focus mainly on recreating a tree zone, while the function of the soil is Jagiellonian University, ul. Gronostajowa 9 neglected. The aim of the project was to estimate the influence of land res- 30-387 Kraków, [email protected] toration (traditional tree plantation without rehabilitation of the soil layer) 2 Department of Ecology, Climatology and on the life traits of ground beetles in slag deposition areas. Air Protection, Agricultural University of Krakow Materials and methods: In a habitat restoration experiment, five sites al. A. Mickiewicza 24/28, 30-059 Kraków [email protected] sampled using pitfall traps were established in a rehabilitated forest and an untreated meadow, with the same number of traps set up on reference forest Correspondence: and meadow sites. Carabid beetles were classified into five categories accord- Tomasz Skalski E-mail: [email protected] ing to life-history traits: body size, feeding strategy, breeding type, wing development and habitat preferences. Results and conclusions: Non-metric multidimensional scaling indi- Key words: forest restoration, slag heap, Carabidae, cated that twenty years of rehabilitation processes had had no effect on the functional traits species composition of slag heap forest carabid assemblages. These forest as- semblages consisted mainly of species having broad ecological requirements, which are characteristic of initial succession. The most notable feature of the distribution of carabid life-history traits on the slag heap is the reduction in abundances of such groups as large and small predatory specialists having an autumn breeding type of reproduction, with limited dispersal abilities, and preferring forests. The results showed that restoration involving only tree plantation does not guarantee the successful recreation of a functioning and stable ecosystem, as the ecosystem remains in the initial stage. INTRODUCTION he main objective of ecosystem restoration measures is to attempt Tto restore the natural level of species diversity in areas degraded by human activity (1). This is particularly important in the case of post- industrial land, where physical deformations of the surface of the land in the form of pits or waste heaps lead to dramatic changes in both abiotic and biotic elements of the environment (2). Due to the large surface occupied by these areas worldwide, they are subjected to a vari- ety of reclamation techniques aimed at restoring biological diversity (3, Received January 12, 2016. 4) Revised June 10, 2016. Most reclamation measures focus on restoring forest ecosystems by Accepted June 27, 2016. planting trees in an appropriate sequence for a given region (Forestry Reclamation Approach) (5). Such measures, however, which neglect T. Skalski et al. Carabidae in post-industrial areas restoration of the soil fauna diversity responsible for prop- bustion waste in the form of a mixture of ash and slag had er circulation of elements (2, 6), do not allow for rapid been deposited from 1975 on a slag heap with a total area colonization of the degraded land. of 68 ha. After the slag heap was formed and waste depo- The rate of secondary succession and recolonization of sition ceased in 1995, the slopes of the slag heap were post-industrial areas is strongly dependent on many fac- planted with native tree species (birch, poplar, aspen and tors, including the nature of the degraded area, the type oak). After exploitation ended in 2010, the unused top of of soil or substrate, availability of light, moisture condi- the slag heap was filled in with non-hazardous construc- tions, and availability of resources from the surrounding tion waste (rubble and sand) in order to even out the environment. All of these affect and determine the poten- misshapen surface of the land, which led to spontaneous tial group of re-colonizers in a given post-industrial area. succession of grasses (Calamagrostis epigeios, Elymus repens Most research focuses on describing potential plant com- and Agrostis gigantea) and herbs (Solidago gigantea, Gal- munities, particularly forests formed on degraded land lium aparine and Cirsium arvense). The study area com- (7), while there have been few studies concerning recolo- prised surfaces on the slag heap divided into the restored nization by animals, particularly forest fauna. Research part (the sides, 20 years old, planted with trees) and the on the rate of recolonization of post-industrial areas by unrehabilitated, early-successional top (3-year-old mead- invertebrates has concerned only bees (8), butterflies, leaf- ow). The reference areas were chosen within a distance of hoppers (9), spiders (10) and beetles (10, 11). half a kilometre from the slag heap and were of similar Carabid beetles (Coleoptera Carabidae) have found age and vegetation composition (trees with dominance of application, confirmed by numerous studies, as bioindica- alder, poplar and birch, and meadows with Calamagrostis tors of environmental disturbances and as a target for epigeios and Deschampsia caespitosa). Twenty 50x50 m re- conservation efforts (12, 13). As a group whose ecology search plots were established, evenly distributed on the and taxonomy are well known, characterized by high sen- meadow and forest in the slag and reference areas. sitivity to environmental changes, carabids are often cho- sen for studies on disturbances, e.g. habitat fragmentation Carabid beetle sampling (14), grazing (15), pesticides (16), agriculture (17), forest Carabid beetles were caught during the 2012 growing management (18), inundation (19), urbanization (20), season using pitfall traps. On each of the four types of heavy metal concentration (21, 22, 23) and slag heap res- treatments (slag heap x meadow and forest; and adjacent toration (24). In the case of severely degraded post-indus- reference areas x meadow and forest), five transects were trial areas, various elements of the life history of carabids established (Figure 1). The study sites were dispersed ran- enable them to successfully recolonize the area, and char- domly across the area, but with the limitations given by acteristic adaptations constitute an important bioindica- the availability of similar habitats. To minimize pseudor- tor element (25, 26). Numerous studies have confirmed eplication arising from the proximity of an identical hab- that analyses based on elements of the life-history traits itat, slag heap sites were selected close to the reference sites of selected organisms are extremely important for restora- in the same habitat type, but sites within each treatment tion projects on fallow land or disfigured post-industrial class were farther apart (ANOVA F = 73. 06, p<0.001, areas, which would include slag heaps (27, 28, 29). forest Fmeadow = 15.12, p<0.01). In each transect, 5 traps contain- In this study we wanted to ask the question if tradi- tional land rehabilitation processes improve habitat qual- ity and function in the forest using ground beetles as in- dicators. We expected that: (i) Carabid assemblages in areas where restoration procedures were based solely on planting of trees have a similar composition as assem- blages in early-successional, unrehabilitated areas. (ii) The distribution of life-history traits of ground beetles on re- stored slag deposits resembles early-successional stages in which the present species have broad ecological require- ments, indicating that the rate of regeneration of the for- est ecosystem is very slow. MATERialS AND METHODS Study Area The study was carried out in an industrially degraded area, i.e. a slag heap of post-industrial waste produced by Figure 1. Distribution of sample sites in relation to habitat type the Skawina Power Plant (Elektrownia Skawina S.A.) in (circle- meadow, square- forest, diamond- rehabilitated forest on southern Poland (48°58’13.7’’ N, 19°46’03.3’’ E). Com- the slag heap, triangle- unrehabilitated top of the slag heap) 186 Period biol, Vol 118, No 3, 2016. Carabidae in post-industrial areas T. Skalski et al. Table 1. Mean ±SD content of organic matter, pH and heavy metals in the soil Organic Cd Pb Zn Cu Sampling plots pH H 0 pH KCl matter [%] 2 mg kg-1 4.55 5.83 4.65 0.25 19.25 56.75 20.75 Meadow ±0.43 ±0.33 ±0.23 ±0.21 ±8.91 ±14.77 ±0.83 Reference 3.50 5.30 4.35 0.59 24.10 79.50 20.18 Forest ±0.40 ±0.31 ±0 ±0.31 ±5.11 ±10.27 ±20.12 13.40 7.20 7.03 0.29 23.23 126.75 71.88 Meadow ±4.29 ±0.49 ±0.47 ±0.12 ±7.16 ±20.59 ±11.33 Slag 5.78 7.63 7.30 0.32 24.90 87.25 37.13 Forest ±0.69 ±0.05 ±0.31 ±0.13 ±9.28 ±24.00 ±1.18 ing ethylene glycol solution were set up linearly. The aver- lowing life-history traits were analysed: body size (small < age distance between traps was no more than 10 m. To 10 mm, medium 10-20 mm and large > 20 mm), feeding investigate seasonal variation, the material was collected strategy (predators or herbivores), breeding type (autumn over the entire growing season from May to October and and spring breeders), wing development (brachypterous or the pitfall traps were emptied twice a month in two peri- macropterous), and habitat preferences (forest or meadow).