Abstract

ORDONEZ-RESENDIZ, María Magdalena; ZARAGOZA-CABALLERO, Santiago; BALLESTEROS-BARRERA, Claudia  and  CORCUERA-MARTINEZ DEL RIO, Pablo. Community composition and structure of ground beetles from Sierras de Taxco-Huautla, Mexico (Coleoptera: Carabidae). Acta Zool. Mex [online]. 2022, vol.38, e3812469.  Epub Aug 22, 2022. ISSN 2448-8445.  https://doi.org/10.21829/azm.2022.3812469.

We studied the composition and structure of Carabidae found in the priority terrestrial region Sierras de Taxco-Huautla. Adult carabids were collected between April 2007 and October 2017 in 71 locations using direct and indirect methods. The sampling effort was 10 hours per locality. We found 185 morphospecies and 57 genera from 29 tribes and nine subfamilies. Harpalinae was the most diverse subfamily with 41 genera and 17 tribes. Platynini, Lebiini and Harpalini were the most diverse and abundant tribes, with genera such as Platynus (42 morphospecies), Lebia (25 morphospecies) and Selenophorus (13 morphospecies). Geophilic (19), hydrophilic (15) and arboreal (11) genera make up a more significant proportion of the carabid fauna; however, the largest number of morphospecies was grouped into few genera capable of inhabiting two or more environments. The structure of the community was dominated by the genera Platynus and Onypterygia. At the generic level, the carabid fauna shows much higher affinity with South America (63.2 %) than with North America (29.8 %), and 7 % are widely distributed in America. New records are documented for Guerrero (14 species), Morelos (10 species) and Estado de Mexico (2 species).

Keywords : predators; dominance; Taxonomy; habitat.