Abstract
Ground beetles sampled with pitfalls in the tea plantations were investigated to estimate the effect of farming systems on the species diversity of ground beetles. In addition, the effects of the number of traps and the period of investigation on the diversity indices were analyzed to determine the minimum procedure for the investigation. The result showed that farming systems did not affect the number of species or the diversity indices of ground beetles. The number of traps affected the number of species, but not the species diversity. Longer period of investigation seemed to be better for the estimation of the diversity. As a minimum procedure, 3 traps and 6 months were required to evaluate a reliable estimation of the diversity of ground beetles.
