Diversity and assemblage structure of ground beetles during the restoration of Satoyama (Japan) with special references to the application of new diversity index

Monitoring changes in Species diversity is one of the useful tools to detect changes in the biological communities in spatio-temporal scales. Quantifying changes in biodiversity must include both the species richness and evenness with which individuals are apportioned among different species. Many studies indicated that ground beetles are one of the best groups that could reflect the changes in the biota. This aspect results from the relative sensitivity of the ground beetles to changes in the structure of different habitat types. Many diversity indices have been proposed to measure biodiversity changes. Each of which has a merit over the other. The complications of using a specific diversity index is the sensitivity of the index to either, or both, the number of species (species richness), evenness and dominance of a definite species or group of species relative to other existing species. In this paper, alterations in the assemblage subjected to different levels of restoration activities were examined and recorded. A new perspective to diversity meaning by the application of Camargo`s index was tested to verify its suitability for ground beetles assemblage in Satoyama area in Japan. From our results, we argue that the use of simple statistical tests with simple statistical approaches may be favoured in inventories or monitoring programs instead of complicated multivariate analysis.