Author(s)

Francisco J. Cividanes^1*, Terezinha M. dos Santos-Cividanes², Alex A. Ribeiro¹

¹Plant Protection Department, Paulista State University, Jaboticabal, Brazil.
²São Paulo Agency for Agribusiness Technology, Ribeirão Preto, Brazil.

In the current study, we investigated the relationship between the abundance of carabid species (Coleoptera: Carabidae) and the phenological stages of weedy plants growing in edge habitats. A survey of carabid beetles was conducted in edge habitats between forest fragments and soybean/corn crops or orange orchards in five sites located in northeastern São Paulo state, Brazil, from November 2005 to May 2008. Beetles were captured with pitfall traps, and multiple regression analysis was used to determine the carabid species that prevailed on each of the phenological stages of weeds. In total, 1115 individuals, representing 26 genera and 52 species, were captured. Selenophorus species, mainly Selenophorus seriatoporus Putzeys, Selenophorus sp.4, Helluomorphoides squiresi (Chaudoir), Tetragonoderus laevigatus Chaudoir, Athrostictus sp.1 were abundant during the reproductive phenological stages of weedy plants, which suggests that these carabid species might prefer to feed on the seeds of weedy plants.

Abundance, Ground Beetle, Phenology, Seed Consumption, Weed

Cividanes, F. , Santos-Cividanes, T. and Ribeiro, A. (2018) Occurrence of Carabid Beetles in the Phenological Stages of Weedy Plants. Advances in Entomology, 6, 176-188. doi: 10.4236/ae.2018.62014.