The impacts of urbanization on ground beetle functional traits (Coleoptera: Carabidae)
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Date
2019-05
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The Ohio State University
Abstract
Various morphological and physiological traits of arthropods have been shown to shift in the face of environmental disturbances such as those caused by urbanization. We adjusted the Equilibrium Theory of Island Biogeography to describe urban green spaces as islands and their rural surroundings as mainlands. We then applied a functional trait-based approach to the theory in order to gain a better understanding and to make predictions about how body size, symmetry, and aedeagus length of carabid beetles may change in the face of urbanization. Our results demonstrate that urbanization drives the prevalence of smaller carabid species in urban islands as well as an increase in fluctuating asymmetry, which are both correlated with heavy metal contamination of soil within cities. Small sample size and uneven distribution of species amongst treatments resulted in unclear associations between aedeagus length and urbanization.
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Keywords
urbanization, Equilibrium Theory of Island biogeography, Carabidae