Relationship between landscape structure and abundance of ground beetles in an olive agro-ecosystem

Abstract: Ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) are generalist predators and important natural enemies of pests, whose populations are affected by diverse environmental factors. In this work, we studied the relationship between population densities of ground beetles and landscape structure in the olive growing area of southeastern Madrid, Spain. Population of the most abundant species, Orthomus barbarus, was not related with more complex landscapes. On the other hand, the total number of ground beetles and the population of Pterostichus globosus showed in autumn a slight increase in landscapes with higher diversity of land uses and edges, but also in landscapes with olive groves as a matrix land use.