2016 Volume 98 Issue 5 Pages 207-213
To evaluate the suitability of carrion beetle (Silphidae and coprophagous group of Scarabaeoidea) assemblages collected by a simple method as indicators of forest habitat, a pitfall trap baited with fish meat was set one per site in each of 15 small, different-aged forest stands in 2012 in Kumamoto City. I sampled 7,667 individuals, belonging to 13 species of carrion beetles. My results indicate that species richness, total numbers of beetles, Simpson's diversity indices, and the abundance of six species significantly increased with stand age. The results of indicator species analyses on the three groups along with stand age (1−2 years old forests, young forests, and middle-aged forests) showed that one and seven species had significant indicator values for young forests and middle-aged forests, respectively. Ordination analysis of beetle assemblages by nonmetric multidimensional scaling revealed that coordinates of the three groups along with stand age differed from each other if excluding a coordinate of the young forest group. These results suggest that carrion beetle assemblages collected through simple methods may be superior indicators of forest habitat in a mixed forest composed of small stands, and that assemblages can respond to environmental changes associated with the stand age.
