Factors impacting occupancy and abundance of beetles in Alabama's black belt prairies

Monday, November 14, 2022

11:18 AM – 11:30 AM PT

Location: Vancouver Convention Centre, Meeting Room 220

Presenting Author(s)

Thomas P. Franzem

PhD Candidate
University of Alabama
Tuscaloosa, Alabama

Co-Author(s)

PF

Paige Ferguson

Assistant Professor
University of Alabama
Tuscaloosa, Alabama

Grasslands are an endangered habitat type in North America, with a nearly 99% reduction in area over the past two centuries. Ecosystem services, such as carbon sequestration and erosion control, are mediated by grasslands. As the world grapples with climate change, grassland conservation is important to our efforts to ameliorate anthropogenic environmental stressors. Insects are vital components of grasslands; they structure the plant community, alter soil conditions, translocate nutrients, and enhance carbon sequestration. Understanding how insect communities in grasslands respond to habitat features and management can inform and enhance grassland conservation, however grassland insect ecology, especially for non-pollinator taxa, is often not considered in grassland conservation and restoration. We investigated how Scarab (Scarabaeidae) and Carabid (Carabidae) beetle occupancy and abundance was impacted by local habitat features and management practices in the Black Belt Prairies of Alabama. We collected beetles from 24 sampling sites in 2019, and generated occurrence and abundance data to construct single-species occupancy models for 20 taxa and a multi-family abundance model. We utilized Stochastic Search Variable Selection and Bayesian LASSO to identify covariates associated with occupancy or abundance and estimate the effect size of those covariates. We expect the results of this work will elucidate how different species respond to local-scale habitat covariates and management and how the abundances of two major beetle families are impacted by those covariates. These results will inform future grassland ecology studies and provide nuanced insight into how insect communities can be incorporated into grassland conservation and management.