From lowlands to highlands: Searching for elevational patterns of species richness and distribution of scarab beetles in Costa Rica

Diversity and Distributions

Volumn 18, Issue 6, 2012, Pages 543-553

  García López, Alejandra ^a   Micó, Estefanía ^a   Galante, Eduardo ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ALICANTE   (Spain)

Author keywords

Altitude; Diversity; Humidity; Light traps; Temperature; Tropical forests

Indexed keywords

ANTHROPOGENIC EFFECT; BEETLE; BIODIVERSITY; HABITAT CONSERVATION; HETEROGENEITY; HUMIDITY; LOWLAND ENVIRONMENT; MOUNTAIN REGION; SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION; SPECIES DIVERSITY; SPECIES RICHNESS; TRAPPING; UPLAND REGION;

COSTA RICA;

COLEOPTERA; DYNASTINAE; MELOLONTHINAE; RUTELINAE; SCARABAEIDAE;

EID: 84860609083     PISSN: 13669516     EISSN: 14724642     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1472-4642.2011.00846.x     Document Type: Article

References (71)

1. Bale, J.S., Masters, G.J., Hodkinson, I.D., Awmack, C., Bezemer, T.M., Brown, V.K., Butterfield, J., Buse, A., Coulson, J.C., Farrar, J.F., Good, J.E.G., Harrington, R., Hartley, S., Jones, T.H., Lindroth, R.L., Press, M.C., Symrnioudis, I., Watt, A.D. & Whittaker, J.B. (2002) Herbivory in global climate change research: direct effects of rising temperature on insect herbivores. Global Change Biology, 8, 1-16.
2. Bergoeing, J.P. (1998) Geomorfología de Costa Rica, Instituto Geográfico Nacional, San José, Costa Rica.
3. Braak, C.J.F.T. (1986) Canonical correspondence analysis: a new eigenvector method for multivariate direct gradient analysis. Ecology, 67, 1167-1179.
4. Braak, C.J.F.T. & Šmilauer, P. (2002) CANOCO reference manual and CanoDraw for Windows user's guide: software for canonical community ordination (version 4.5). Microcomputer Power, Ithaca, USA.
5. Brehm, G. & Axmacher, J.C. (2006) A comparison of manual and automatic moth sampling methods (Lepidoptera: Arctiidae, Geometridae) in a rain forest in Costa Rica. Environmental Entomology, 35, 757-764.
6. Brown, J.H. (2001) Mammals on mountainsides: elevational patterns of diversity. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 10, 101-109.
7. Brown, A.D. & Kappelle, M. (2001) Introducción a los bosques nublados del neotrópico: una síntesis regional. Bosques nublados del neotrópico (ed. by M. Kappelle and A.D. Brown), pp. 25-40. Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad, Santo Domingo de Heredia, Costa Rica.
8. Cardelús, C.L., Colwell, R.K. & Watkins, J.E. (2006) Vascular epiphyte distribution patterns: explaining the mid-elevation richness peak. Journal of Ecology, 94, 144-156.
9. Chave, J. & Leigh, E.G. (2002) A spatially explicit neutral model of beta-diversity in tropical forests. Theoretical Population Biology, 62, 153-168.
10. Chazdon, R.L., Colwell, R.K., Denslow, J.S. & Guariguata, M.R. (1998) Statistical methods for estimating species richness of woody regeneration in primary and secondary tropical forests of NE Costa Rica. Forest biodiversity research, monitoring and modelling: conceptual background and old world case studies (ed. by F. Dallmeier and J.A. Comiskey), pp. 285-309. Pantheon Press, Paris.
11. Clarke, K. & Gorley, R. (2006) PRIMER v6: user manual/tutorial. PRIMER-E, Plymouth.
12. Colwell, R.K. (2005) EstimateS: statistical estimation of species richness and shared species from samples. Version 8.0 users guide and application. Version by R.K. Colwell. Available at: (accessed 24 March 2010).
13. Colwell, R.K. & Hurtt, G.C. (1994) Nonbiological gradients in species richness and a spurious Rapoport effect. American Naturalist, 144, 570-595.
14. Colwell, R.K. & Lees, D.C. (2000) The mid-domain effect: geometric constraints on the geography of species richness. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 15, 70-76.
15. Colwell, R.K., Mao, C.X. & Chang, J. (2004) Interpolating, extrapolating and comparing incidence-based species accumulation curves. Ecology, 85, 2717-2727.
16. Colwell, R.K., Brehm, G., Cardelús, C.L., Gilman, A.C. & Longino, J.T. (2008) Global warming, elevational range shifts, and lowland biotic attrition in the wet tropics. Science, 322, 258-261.
17. Condit, R., Pitman, N., Leigh, E.G., Chave, J., Terborgh, J., Foster, R.B., Núñez, P., Aguilar, S., Valencia, R., Villa, G., Muller-Landau, H.C., Losos, E. & Hubbell, S.P. (2002) Beta-diversity in tropical forest trees. Science, 295, 666-669.
18. Curran, L.M., Trigg, S.N., McDonald, A.K., Astiani, D., Hardiono, Y.M., Siregar, P., Caniago, I. & Kasischke, E. (2004) Lowland forest loss in protected areas of Indonesian Borneo. Science, 303, 1000-1003.
19. Davis, A.V.L., Scholtz, C.H. & Chown, S.L. (1999) Species turnover, community boundaries and biogeographical composition of dung beetle assemblages across an altitudinal gradient in South Africa. Journal of Biogeography, 26, 1039-1055.
20. Deutsch, C.A., Tewksbury, J.J., Huey, R.B., Sheldon, K.S., Ghalambor, C.K., Haak, D.C. & Martin, P.R. (2008) Impacts of climate warming on terrestrial ectotherms across latitude. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 105, 6668-6672.
21. Dunn, R.R., Colwell, R.K. & Nilsson, C. (2006) The river domain: why are there more species halfway up the river? Ecography, 29, 251-259.
22. Escobar, F., Lobo, J.M. & Halffter, J. (2005) Altitudinal variation of dung beetle (Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae) assemblages in the Colombian Andes. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 14, 327-337.
23. Escobar, F., Halffter, G. & Arellano, L. (2007) From forest to pasture: an evaluation of the influence of environment and biogeography on the structure of dung beetle (Scarabaeinae) assemblages along three altitudinal gradients in the Neotropical region. Ecography, 30, 193-208.
24. Ewers, R.M. & Didham, R.K. (2006) Confounding factors in the detection of species responses to habitat fragmentation. Biological Reviews, 81, 117-146.
25. Faith, D.P., Minchin, P.R. & Belbin, L. (1987) Compositional dissimilarity as a robust measure of ecological distance. Plant Ecology, 69, 57-68.
26. Favila, H. (1997) The use of indicators groups for measuring biodiversity. Acta Zoológica Mexicana, 72, 1-25.
27. Ferro, L.I. & Barquez, R.M. (2009) Species richness of nonvolant small mammals along elevational gradients in Northwestern Argentina. Biotropica, 41, 759-767.
28. García-López, A., Micó, E., Numa, C. & Galante, E. (2010) Spatiotemporal variation of scarab beetle assemblages (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Dynastinae, Melolonthinae, Rutelinae) in the premontane rain forest in Costa Rica: a question of scale. Annals of the Entomological Society of America, 103, 956-964.
29. García-López, A., Micó, E., Zumbado, M.A. & Galante, E. (2011) Sampling scarab beetles (Scarabaeidae: Dynastinae, Melolonthinae and Rutelinae) in tropical forests: the effect of light source and night sampling periods. Journal of Insect Science, 11, 1-14.
30. Gaston, K.J. (2000) Global patterns in biodiversity. Nature, 405, 220-227.
31. Goodman, S.M., Carleton, M.D. & Pidgeon, M. (1999) Rodents of the Reserve Naturelle Integrale d'Andohahela, Madagascar. Fieldiana Zoology, 94, 217-249.
32. Gotelli, N.J. & Colwell, R.K. (2001) Quantifying biodiversity: procedures and pitfalls in the measurement and comparison of species richness. Ecology Letters, 4, 379-391.
33. Grytnes, J.A. & Vetaas, O.R. (2002) Species richness and altitude: a comparison between null models and interpolated plant species richness along the Himalayan altitudinal gradient, Nepal. American Naturalist, 159, 294-304.
34. Gullan, P.J. & Cranston, P.S. (2000) The insects: an outline of entomology. Blackwell Science, Oxford, UK.
35. Hanski, I. & Niemelä, J. (1990) Elevational distribution of dung and carrion beetles in northern Sulawesi. Insects and the rain forests of South East Asia (ed. by W.J. Knight and J.D. Holloway), pp. 145-152. The Royal Entomological Society of London, London, UK.
36. Hodkinson, I.D. (2005) Terrestrial insects along elevation gradients: species and community responses to altitude. Biological Reviews, 80, 489-513.
37. Hortal, J., Borges, P.A.V. & Gaspar, C. (2006) Evaluating the performance of species richness estimators: sensitivity to sample grain size. Journal of Animal Ecology, 75, 274-287.
38. Jaccard, P. (1912) The distribution of flora in the alpine zone. The New Phytologist, 11, 37-50.
39. Janssens, A. (1949) Contribution à l'étude des coléoptères Lamellicornes. XIII. Table synoptique et essai de classifi cation pratique des Coléoptéres Scarabaeidae. Bulletin, Institut Royal des Sciences Naturelles de Belgique, 25, 1-30.
40. Kumar, A., Longino, J.T., Colwell, R.K. & O'Donnell, S. (2009) Elevational patterns of diversity and abundance of eusocial paper wasps (Vespidae) in Costa Rica. Biotropica, 41, 338-346.
41. Lawrence, J.F., Hastings, A.M., Dallwitz, M.J., Paine, T.A. & Zurcher, E.J. (2000) Beetles of the world. CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood, Victoria, Australia.
42. Lobo, J.M. & Halffter, G. (2000) Biogeographical and ecological factors affecting the altitudinal variation of mountainous communities of coprophagous beetles (Coleoptera, Scarabaeoidea): a comparative study. Annals of the Entomological Society of America, 93, 115-126.
43. Lomolino, M.V. (2001) Elevation gradients of species-density: historical and prospective views. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 10, 3-13.
44. Magurran, A.E. (1988) Diversidad ecológica y su medición. Ediciones VEDRA, Barcelona.
45. McCain, C.M. (2004) The mid-domain effect applied to elevational gradients: species richness of small mammals in Costa Rica. Journal of Biogeography, 31, 19-31.
46. McCain, C.M. (2009) Global analysis of bird elevational diversity. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 18, 346-360.
47. McCain, C.M. & Grytnes, J.A. (2010) Elevational gradients in species richness. Encyclopedia of life sciences (ELS), John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester. DOI:
48. McCarty, J.P. (2001) Ecological consequences of recent climate change. Conservation Biology, 15, 320-331.
49. McCoy, E.D. (1990) The distribution of insects along elevational gradients. Oikos, 58, 313-322.
50. McDonald, K.A. & Brown, J.H. (1992) Using montane mammals to model extinctions due to global change. Conservation Biology, 6, 409-415.
51. Moreno, C.E., Pineda, E., Escobar, F. & Sánchez-Rojas, G. (2007) Shortcuts for biodiversity evaluation: a review of terminology and recommendations for the use of target groups, bioindicators and surrogates. International Journal of Environment and Health, 1, 71-86.
52. Morón, M.A. (2004) Escarabajos. 200millones de años de evolución, Instituto de Ecología de Xalapa, México & Sociedad Entomológica Aragonesa, SEA, Spain.
53. Morón-Ríos, A. & Morón, M.A. (2001) La fauna de Coleoptera Melolonthidae de la reserva de la biósfera "El Triunfo", Chiapas, México. Acta Zoológica Mexicana, 84, 1-25.
54. Morón-Ríos, A., Alcázar-Ruíz, J.A. & Morón, M.A. (2003) Fauna de Coleoptera Melolonthidae de Villa Las Rosas, Chiapas, México. Acta Zoológica Mexicana, 88, 59-86.
55. Obando, V. (2002) Biodiversidad de Costa Rica. Estado del conocimiento y gestión. Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad, Santo Domingo de Heredia, Costa Rica.
56. Pounds, A.J., Bustamante, M.R., Coloma, L.A., Consuegra, J.A., Fogden, M.P.L., Foster, P.N., La Marca, E., Masters, K.L., Merino-Viteri, A., Puschendorf, R., Ron, S.R., Sanchez-Azofeifa, G.A., Still, C.J. & Young, B.E. (2006) Widespread amphibian extinctions from epidemic disease driven by global warming. Nature, 439, 161-167.
57. Rahbek, C. (1995) The elevational gradient of species richness: a uniform pattern? Ecography, 18, 200-205.
58. Ricklefs, R.E. (2004) A comprehensive framework for global patterns in biodiversity. Ecology Letters, 7, 1-15.
59. Ritcher, P.O. (1958) Biology of Scarabaeidae. Annual Review of Entomology, 3, 311-334.
60. Ritcher, P.O. (1966) White grubs and their allies. Oregon State University Press, Corvallis, Oregon, USA.
61. Rodríguez, J., Hortal, J. & Nieto, M. (2006) An evaluation of the influence of environment and biogeography on community structure: the case of Holarctic mammals. Journal of Biogeography, 33, 291-303.
62. Rodríguez-Castañeda, G., Dyer, L.A., Brehm, G., Connahs, H., Forkner, R.E. & Walla, T.R. (2010) Tropical forests are not flat: how mountains affect herbivore diversity. Ecology Letters, 13, 1348-1357.
63. Sánchez-González, A. & López-Mata, L. (2005) Plant species richness and diversity along an altitudinal gradient in the Sierra Nevada, Mexico. Diversity and Distributions, 11, 567-575.
64. Sekercioglu, C.H., Schneider, S.H., Fay, J.P. & Loarie, S.L. (2007) Climate change, elevational range shifts and bird extinctions. Conservation Biology, 22, 140-150.
65. Shauna-Lee, C. & Edmund, T. (2010) Are we losing the best parts of our protected areas in tropical mountains? Biotropica, 42, 739-747.
66. Shmida, A. & Wilson, M.V. (1985) Biological determinants of species diversity. Journal of Biogeography, 12, 1-20.
67. Soininen, J., McDonald, R. & Hillebrand, H. (2007) The distance decay of similarity in ecological communities. Ecography, 30, 3-12.
68. Still, C.J., Foster, P.N. & Schneider, S.H. (1999) Simulating the effects of climate change on tropical montane cloud forests. Nature, 398, 608-610.
69. Valerio, C.E. (1999) Costa Rica. Ambiente y Sociedad, Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad, Santo Domingo de Heredia, Costa Rica.
70. Watkins, J.E. Jr, Cardelús, C., Colwell, R.K. & Moran, R.C. (2006) Species richness and distribution of ferns along an elevational gradient in Costa Rica. American Journal of Botany, 93, 73-83.
71. Wolda, H. (1987) Altitude, habitat and tropical insect diversity. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 30, 313-323.