"Education, arts and social sciences, natural and technical sciences in the United States and Canada".

In the Bayesian networks the links between species were consistent over time and the model networks showed several characteristics of real-life ecological networks, such as the dominance of positive links over negative ones, the power-law distribution between the number of links belonging to one node and the presence of separate sub-networks. The community analysis of the built networks resulted in a good separation of sub-networks between habitats and sites, suggesting the capability of the method to recognise ecological patterns. Besides range shifts, climate change stress in situ adaptation strategies in ground beetles (such as advancing phenology) may lead to a significant change in the assemblages found in the same time period at one site (temporal assemblages). These temporal assemblage changes, especially if combined with direct anthropogenic impacts such as habitat degradation or fragmentation, substantially threaten the survival of carabid populations. Further research and implementation of new methods are needed to clarify the potential impacts of these threats on the ecosystem services that carabids provide for human societies.

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.

The Chun T'Oh Wudujut is a provincial park located in the Interior Cedar-Hemlock biogeoclimatic zone. My objective was to assess the use of carabid beetles as bioindicators of change in this unique interior temperate rain forest ecosystem. Using a combination of morphotyping and DNA barcoding, I examined the diversity of carabid beetles in three different habitat types: clear-cuts, undisturbed old growth, and disturbed old growth subject to frequent human traffic. Nineteen species of carabid were observed, with the highest diversity occurring in clear-cut sites. Carabid diversity in both old growth habitats was similar, but differed from that in the clear-cuts. Temperature and relative humidity proved more variable in clear-cut sites; this may impact carabid biodiversity, and should be measured in future bioindicative studies. Several species of carabid beetles (alone and in combination) were identified as possible bioindicators, including Scaphinotus marginatus, Trechus chalybeus, Pterostichus herculaneus, and Pterostichus riparius.