Diversity of Soil-Litter Insects: Comparison of the Pselaphine Beetles (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Pselaphinae) and the Ground Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

Abstract

Forest litter-inhabiting arthropods except ants are poorly understood because of their small sizes and cryptic habitats. However, they play an essential role in nutrient cycling and contribute valuable data to study of comparative biodiversity and conservation. Soil beetles such as Pselaphine beetles (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Pselaphinae) are cosmopolitan, species-rich, and yet poorly studied, particularly in the tropics. While ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) are a large component of the arthropod community on ground in forest ecosystems. We sampled pselaphine beetles and ants in three types of primary forest and two types of disturbed forest habitat in eastern Thailand to assess the utility of pselaphine beetles and ants to determine if one group could be predicted the diversity of other. We compared species richness, abundance and diversity of ground ants and pselaphine beetles in each forest types using 1 m2 quadrat samples and extracted them with Tullgren funnels. A total of 1,867 pselaphine individuals representing 114 species in six supertribes and 44,135 individuals, 142 species in nine subfamilies of ants were collected in all habitats. Species richness, abundance, and Shannon diversity of pselaphine beetles and ants showed a significant response to