Optimum sampling effort for study of tropical ground beetles (Carabidae: Coleoptera) using pitfall traps

摘要

The optimum number of pitfall traps needed to study species-abundance distribution of ground beetles (Carabidae: Coleoptera) in an agroforest was determined over a sampling period of 4 months, using 15, 25, 35 and 50 pitfall traps within a sample area of 15 000 m2. Differences between sampling numbers for for species richness were narrower than those for species abundance. Analysis based on the qualitative and quantitative community structure of carabids indicated the use of either 25 or 35 pitfalltraps as optimum for assessing diversity, depending on the type of investigation. This study pointed out the variations in sampling numbers to be adopted over geographic regions for the precise estimate of carabid species distribution.