Species traits modify the species-area relationship in ground-beetle (Coleoptera: Carabidae) assemblages on islands in a boreal lake.

ABSTRACT: Life-history traits influence colonization, persistence, and extinction of species on islands and are important aspects of theories predicting the geographical distribution and evolution of species. We used data collected from a large freshwater lake (1,413 km2) in central Canada to test the effects of island area and isolation on species richness and abundance of carabid beetles as a function of body size, wing length, and breeding season. A total of 10,018 individual beetles from 37 species were collected during the frost-free period of 2013 using transects of pitfall traps on 30 forested islands ranging in area from 0.2 to 980.7 ha. Life-history traits improved the predictive ability and significantly modified the shape of species-area and abundance-area curves. Abundance and richness o

SUBMITTER: Bell AJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5738139 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature