I Coleotteri Carabidi (Coleoptera, Carabidae) come indicatori di passati interventi selvicolturali in foreste vetuste del Parco Nazionale della Sila (Calabria, Italia)

Ground beetles as indicators of past management of old-growth forests in the Sila National Park. Old-growthforests are terrestrial ecosystems with the highest level of biodiversity and the main environments for thestudy of conservation and dynamics of the forest system. In Mediterranean Europe, two millennia of humanexploitation deeply altered the structural complexity of the native forests. Some animal groups, including insects,may be used as a proxy of such changes. In this paper we explored the possible effects of forest managementon the functional diversity (species traits) of carabid beetle communities. Three old-growth forests ofthe Sila National Park were sampled by pitfall traps set up in pure beech, beech-silver fir and Calabrian blackpine forests. In each forest, five managed vs. five unmanaged stands were considered. Managed sites wereexploited until the sixties of the past century and then left unmanaged. More than 6000 carabid specimensbelonging to 23 species were collected. The functional diversity in carabid groups is influenced by forest managementespecially in beech and beech-silver fir stands. Body size, specialized predators, endemic speciesand forest species were negatively affected by stand management. On the contrary, omnivorous ground beetlespopulations (or species) with a high dispersal power (macropterous) and large geographic distributionwere positively influenced by stand management. In pine forests the old-growth community seems less sensitiveto past management and more affected by soil evolution. Soil erosion and disturbance may reduce speciesdiversity of ground beetles. Anyway, the composition of the carabid community shows that 50-60 yearsof forest restoration are enough for the reconstruction of a fairly diverse assemblage reflecting a “subclimax”situation.