Community resilience following extreme disturbances: The response of ground beetles to a severe summer flood in a Central European lowland stream

Extreme environmental events are predicted to increase in future due to global climate change. However, their effects on biodiversity still remain insufficiently understood because of the rarity and consequently the difficulty of studying the effects of extreme events. Here, we investigate the impacts on ground beetles of an unpredictable catastrophic flood event of the Elbe River in Germany in the year 2002 using pre- and post-flood data. We analysed the response of grassland communities differentially exposed to flooding and focused on the question of how long their response lagged behind this extreme flood.