Artur R. M. Serrano‡, Martim Baptista§, Rui Carvalho|, Mário Boieiro|, Sara Mendes¶, Marie Bartz¶, Sérgio Timóteo¶, Henrique M.V.S. Azevedo-Pereira¶#, Carlos A.S Aguiar‡, António Alves da Silva¶, Joana Alves¶, Maria Jesús I. Briones¤, Paulo A. V. Borges|«, José P. Sousa¶, Pedro Martins da Silva¶Corresponding author: Artur Serrano ( aserrano@fc.ul.pt ) Corresponding author: Pedro Martins da Silva ( pedrogpmartins@gmail.com ) © Artur Serrano, Martim Baptista, Rui Carvalho, Mário Boieiro, Sara Mendes, Marie Bartz, Sérgio Timóteo, Henrique Azevedo-Pereira, Carlos Aguiar, António Alves da Silva, Joana Alves, Maria Briones, Paulo Borges, José Sousa, Pedro Martins da Silva. This is an open access preprint distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Citation:
Serrano ARM, Baptista M, Carvalho R, Boieiro M, Mendes S, Bartz M, Timóteo S, Azevedo-Pereira HM.V.S, Aguiar CA, Alves da Silva A, Alves J, Briones MJI, Borges PAV, Sousa JP, Martins da Silva P (2023) Inventory of tiger and ground beetles (Coleoptera, Caraboidea: Cicindelidae and Carabidae) in two sampling seasons of the Gorongosa National Park. ARPHA Preprints. https://doi.org/10.3897/arphapreprints.e102377 |  |
The Gorongosa National Park (Mozambique) is one of the most emblematic protected areas in Africa, well known for its vertebrate biodiversity and restoration ecology efforts following the Mozambican civil war in 1992. The invertebrate biodiversity of Gorongosa National Park is still poorly studied, although the scarce information available indicates the existence of a rich number of species, particularly ground-beetles. The study of Caraboidea beetles is key for designing conservation practices since they are frequently used as biodiversity and ecological indicators and provide valuable information to help decision making. Therefore, the diversity assessment of Caraboidea beetles using standardized methodologies, can be used to quantify the effects of climate change in areas identified as vulnerable to antropogenic pressures, such as the Gorongosa National Park
We report the occurrence of five tiger beetles (Cicindelidae) and 93 ground beetles (Carabidae) species/morphospecies in Gorongosa National Park from a field survey funded by the ECOASSESS project. Sampling was performed in the four main habitat types present in the park (miombo tropical forest, mixed dry forest, transition forest and grasslands) between October 25th and November 25th. In this sampling window, the turnover of Caraboidea species from the dry season to the wet season was recorded for the first time. Twenty-seven species of ground-beetles are new records to Mozambique, including three new subgenera and two new genera. Additional information on species phenology and habitat preferences is also provided.