Beetle biodiversity in forest habitats in Laos depends on the level of human exploitation
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Beetle biodiversity in forest habitats in Laos depends on the level of human exploitation Bounsanong Chouangthavy1 · Khankeo Bouttavong1 · Johnny Louangphan1 · Phonepadith Phewphanh1 · Phoutthasone Sibounnavong1 · Seephai Souksavat1,2 · Nantasak Pinkaew2 · Dirk Babendreier3 Received: 16 January 2020 / Accepted: 17 July 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Coleopteran diversity was compared between more and less disturbed lowland evergreen deciduous forests located in Phou Phanang National protected area, Lao PDR. Using window traps and pitfall traps and collecting beetles from March until December 2018, a total of 6243 specimens were obtained. The number of morphospecies found in the less disturbed forest was significantly higher as compared to the more disturbed forest. Slightly more morphospecies were found in the window traps compared to pitfall traps and a significantly higher number of morphospecies were found in the wet season (June and September collections), compared to the dry season (March and December collections). Similarly, more than twice as many specimens were found in the less disturbed forest, compared to the more disturbed forest and also again more were found in the wet season, in particular predators. The data presented here indicate that so far largely undisturbed forests in Lao PDR need to be better protected from human exploitation such as logging. Keywords Coleoptera · Biodiversity · Deciduous rain forest · Human exploitation · Morphospecies
Introduction Laos is a landlocked, tropical country in the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula with almost 75% of the country being mountainous and about 40% of its territory still covered with forest. Due to the considerable extension from north to south, a high number of habitat types and exceptionally high biodiversity can be found, making Laos one of the global biodiversity hotspots as designated by Myers et al. (2000). A large proportion of the species occurring in Laos, especially insects, are endemic to the Indochinese subregion within the Indomalayan faunal region, however, a considerable number of endemic species are restricted to * Dirk Babendreier [email protected] 1
Plant Protection Unit, Department of Plant Science, Faculty of Agriculture, National University of Laos, P.O. Box 7322, Vientiane, Lao PDR
2
Department of Entomology, Faculty of Agriculture at Kamphaeng Saen, Kasetsart University, Nakhon Pathom 73140, Thailand
3
CABI Switzerland, Rue des Grillons 1, 2800 Delémont, Switzerland
Laos, e.g. in the Annamites and the Khammouan karst area (Geiser and Nagel 2013). To protect biodiversity is a high priority on the agenda globally and also the Lao PDR (Laos) has subscribed to the convention of biodiversity. However, large areas of the Laos landscape have not been thoroughly explored for biodiversity and in particular, the entomofauna has been targeted rarely. Therefore coleopterans—the most diverse order of insects group on Earth—are also greatly underexplored, despite a number of collections have been c
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