Canopy Coleoptera of two Louisiana ecoregions
Monday, March 4, 2013
Heidelberg Ballroom (Hilton Baton Rouge)
Brian Reily
,
Louisiana State Arthropod Museum, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA
Michael L. Ferro
,
Department of Entomology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA
Patricia Newell
,
University of Georgia, Athens, GA
Christopher E. Carlton
,
Dept. of Entomology, Louisiana State University Agricultural Center, Baton Rouge, LA
Forest canopies are known to contain high arthropod diversity; however, like many areas, Louisiana lacks large-scale species assemblage studies of this habitat. Sante style canopy malaise traps were used to survey beetle (Coleoptera) diversity in northern backswamp and southern Holocene meander belt ecoregions in Louisiana. Traps were deployed at study sites in each ecoregion during April-July, 2006. A survey of all individuals in the families Buprestidae, Cerambycidae, Cleridae, and Nitidulidae was conducted on a subset of samples from the May-July collecting period.
Based on species accumulation curves, species richness was not significantly different between the two sites for either Cerambycidae or Cleridae. Differences in richness between sites for Buprestidae and Nitidulidae were observed, but could be due to the small number of specimens of these families collected. Taxa that were significantly more abundant in one of the two sites included Charriessa pilosa (Forster) (Cleridae) and Cregya mixta (LeConte) (Cleridae) — both predators of bark beetles (Curculionidae: Scolytinae), important pests of timber — Colopterus maculatus (Erichson) (Nitidulidae), a potential vector of oak wilt, and six native species of Cerambycidae. Three specimens of Cephaloscymnus zimmermanni (Crotch) (Coccinellidae) were also collected and we report this species as a new state record for Louisiana.
