With the removal and destruction of natural areas for human use, there is a push to restore natural habitats. However, most restoration activities focus on reestablishing plant communities, while less is known about the recovery of organisms in higher trophic levels and their functional roles. Considering functional traits (those that explain an organisms' response to environmental change and impacts on ecosystems) of restored communities may reveal how communities, and the ecosystem functions they drive, recover. Of particular interest are ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) because of their diversity and important ecological roles as consumers. This study focused on the ground beetle community's taxonomic and functional responses to time since restoration, presence of bison, and prescribed fire to make predictions of how ground beetles influence restoration outcomes in tallgrass prairie. Specifically, the functional responses of interest were seed and arthropod predation. FDiv and FDis, two measures of functional diversity, were negatively affected by prescribed fire and presence of bison, but older restored sites had higher FDiv and FDis values. Predation rates, related to ecosystem functioning, also declined with recent fire. Older sites also had a higher activity density (abundance) of ground beetles, and bison created particularly favorable habitat for carnivorous and flightless species. While there was no clear pattern of how site age or bison impacted the ground beetle community, prescribed fire tended to reduce functional diversity and predatory function. Therefore, land managers should consider the timeframe between prescribed burns in order to allow the ground beetle community to reestablish, if the goal is to increase ground beetle community diversity and functional diversity.

Insects display a staggering diversity of behaviors. Studying these systems provides insights into a wide range of ecological, evolutionary, and behavioral questions including the genetics of behavior, phenotypic plasticity, chemical communication, and the evolution of life-history traits. This accessible text offers a new approach that provides the reader with the necessary theoretical and conceptual foundations, at different hierarchical levels, to understand insect behavior. The book is divided into three main sections: mechanisms, ecological and evolutionary consequences, and applied issues. The final section places the preceding chapters within a framework of current threats to human survival - climate change, disease, and food security - before providing suggestions and insights as to how we can utilize an understanding of insect behavior to control and/or ameliorate them. Each chapter provides a concise, authoritative review of the conceptual, theoretical, and methodological foundations of each topic.

This study examined the diversity, community composition, and wing state of Carabidae as a function of forest age and identified eighteen species as potential ecological indicators for forest age. Ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) are typically ground-dwelling, generalist predators. Carabids were collected monthly through pitfall traps from March 2009 through February 2010 from 33 sites representing 5 forest classes approximately 0, 10, 50, 85, and 150 years old. 2,568 individuals were collected, representing 29 genera and 66 species. Carabid species diversity was significantly different between the oldest and youngest forest age classes for some but not all of six diversity indices. Although most carabid species can be considered generalists, occurring in all or most of the forest age classes, carabid species composition still varied significantly across classes. The results of non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) and Detrended Correspondence Analysis (DCA) ordination both show a clear separation of forest age classes in terms of beetle community composition. Eighteen carabid species were identified as potential candidates for ecological indicators of forest age. The proportion of individuals capable of flight decreased with forest age.