Distribución vertical de Coleoptera (Insecta) en un bosque tropical subcaducifolio en Jalisco, México

Abstract

This study describes for the first time the vertical distribution of the Coleoptera of a tropical dry-forest of the Mexican Pacific. Even when some studies about the diverstiy and distributional patterns of insect communities in tropical dry forests of Mexican Pacific Coast have been made, there is no information about local ecological patterns, such as the vertical distribution among forest strata. In this study we assess this distributional pattern. We collected 3,882 individuals of Coleoptera, which belong to 47 families and 377 morphospecies at the Chamela Biological Station, Jalisco, Mexico, and using 12 flight intercept traps for 24 months. Morphospecies abundance, richness and diversity are similar between the understory and canopy strata. However, the beta diversity indices used in the analysis showed significant differences in the composition of morphospecies between the strata of each site. These changes detected between the understory and the canopy, are probably related to environmental and micro-environmental habitat conditions, as well as to the biological constraints of the different species.