I Coleotteri Carabidi come indicatori predittivi dell’ambiente: clima e disturbo antropico

Coleoptera Carabidae as monitoring indicators of environmental changes: climate and human disturbance - Carabid beetles are today widely used for evaluation and monitoring of environmental changes related with disturbance and degradation occurring in single biotopes or in entire landscapes. Long term alteration trends, changes affecting species composition in regional faunas and/or in habitat species assemblages as a consequence of climate “global change” or by prolonged man disturbance seem less endeavoured. Data have been presented on the possible long-term influence of global change on the survival of high altitude carabid species in the Italian Appennine (Mt. Terminillo). Concerning local species extinction, the case study of the “Bosco Farneto” suburban forest near Trieste is presented. This forest has been proposed as Site of Community Interest of the Nature 2000 net because of the past presence of Osmoderma eremita, and its carabid assemblages have been checked by pit-fall traps during 1983. The forest has been completely cut down in 1944, during the second world war, and 1983, in the 240 hectares large reforested area, 31 carabid species have been re-collected, eight among them never captured before. The inclusive faunula, carefully censused by triestine entomologists starting fron the XIXth century, counts up 70 species, 39 of which not found again after 1983, that means a historical extinction rate around 50%. The importance of such kind of studies is emphasized, at best in sites well known from a faunal point of view, to allow an optimal interpretation of findings.