Which Seed Properties Determine the Preferences of Carabid Beetle Seed Predators?

ABSTRACT: Ground beetles are important invertebrate seed predators in temperate agro-ecosystems. However, there is a lack of information regarding which seed properties are important to carabids when they select seeds for consumption. Therefore, seed properties, such as size, shape, morphological defence, and chemical composition, were measured, and in addition to seed taxonomy and ecology, these data were used to explain carabid preferences. Carabid preferences were assessed using a multi-choice experiment with 28 species of weed seeds presented to 37 species of Carabidae. Multiple regression on distance matrices (MRM) was used to determine the importance of particular sets of seed properties for carabids. The analysis was conducted for the full set of carabids (37 species) as well as for subsets o

SUBMITTER: Foffova H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7692740 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature