Ground beetle species in heathland fragments in relation to survival, dispersal, and habitat preference

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Abstract
Local numbers of ground beetle species of heathland appeared to be significantly associated with size of total area, whereas such relationships were not found for the total number of ground beetle species and eurytopic ground beetle species. Presence of species with low chances of immigration was highly associated with area. This is accordance with the “area per se” hypothesis for islands as far as extinction rates are concerned. The habitat diversity hypothesis and the random sampling hypothesis are of less importance for explaining this phenomenon. The importance of dispersal for presence and survival in fragmented habitats could be demonstrated. This result supports the founding hypothesis, under which founding of new populations is considered the main effect of dispersal. The frequency of heathland species with low powers of dispersal in habitats smaller than 10 ha was 76% lower on average than in areas larger than 100 ha. For heathland species with high powers of dispersal this frequency was only 22% lower on average. The period of isolation of the habitats studied, 26–113 years, appeared to be too long to persist for many populations of heathland species with low powers of dispersal.