Biodiversity of ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) in different habitats of the Italian Po lowland

In this paper a meta-analysis of published and new data on ground beetle species assemblages in the agroecosystems of the Italian Po lowland was performed as a study case to describe the effect of habitat type with different human disturbance on species richness, taxonomic diversity and biological traits. Spatially explicit analyses gave species richness as positively related to human impact, while the proportions of short winged, large and predatory species were negatively related to human impact. The results highlight how species richness may be a completely misleading parameter for the interpretation of human impacts. Therefore, ecological traits for each species need to be standardized and included in the evaluation and monitoring of the effect of human activities on the environment. For ground beetles the use of morpho-ecological traits as wing morphology, diet and body size is recommended, and not species richness per se. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.