2016 Volume 60 Issue 1 Pages 33-41
Small-scale soil scarification under canopies has been proposed to remove regeneration inhibitor plants that often dominate the understory in natural forests after selection logging. We studied the impacts of the small-scale soil scarification on carabid beetle assemblages in conifer–hardwood mixed forests in northern Japan. We sampled carabid beetles using pitfall traps in scarified sites and adjacent unscarified sites two and four years after scarification. Forest species made up 98% of the total catch with only a few individuals of non-forest species occurring in scarified sites. Species richness of forest species did not differ significantly between scarified and unscarified sites, whereas species richness of non-forest species was higher in scarified sites than in unscarified sites. Carabid species composition differed between scarified and unscarified sites in each of the two study years. Dissimilarity measures between scarified and adjacent unscarified sites were smaller after four years than after two years, indicating that differences in species composition associated with scarification declined during the study period. Some forest species were more abundant in scarified sites, whereas other forest species were more abundant in unscarified sites. Our results suggest that small-scale scarification may have a limited impact on carabid beetle diversity.
