The ground beetles (Caraboidea) of Southern Sikhote-Alin

Study Extent

When studying the Sikhote-Alin ground beetles, all available methods of their collection were used: manual collection, collection with an exhauster, soil traps, shaking off the crowns of trees and shrubs, light of electric lamps, trampling vegetation in damp and boggy biotopes, sifting the litter using entomological sieves, mowing on grassy vegetation using an entomological net and others.

Sampling

The data were based on the materials we collected over a 30-year study of ground beetles in the southern part of Sikhote-Alin. During the period of the most intensive study of the fauna in 1993-2011, route and stationary studies covered a vast territory from the Murav'ev-Amursky Peninsula in the south to the Kema River basin in the north. During these years, special, often many-day and multiple, expeditions were undertaken to most of the high-mountain peaks of the southern Sikhote-Alin. In addition to our own collections, the available materials from the Sikhote-Alin territory, collected by other researchers, were studied.

Quality Control

All collected specimens were identified by the author of this resource. The taxonomy and names of taxa are given in accordance with the Catalog of Palaearctic Coleoptera (Löbl, Löbl, 2017).

Method steps

1. Available later

The southern Sikhote-Alin is located in the extreme southeast of the mainland of Russia within the Primorsky Krai. The studied area is a part of the vast mountainous country Sikhote-Alin at coordinates 42.8⁰ – 46.1⁰ north latitude and 131.8⁰ – 136.8⁰ east longitude. The length, both from north to south and from west to east, is about 400 km. By the nature of the relief, the southern Sikhote-Alin is a typical mid-mountainous country. Its average height is 600-1000 m above sea level, individual peaks rise to 1600-1800 m above sea level (Oblachnaya, 1856 m; Snezhnaya, 1682 m; Sestra, 1671 m; Olkhovaya, 1669 m). The forest type of vegetation prevails on the territory. About 97% of the territory is under forests. Non-forest types (coastal littoral, meadows, marshs, subalpine shrubs, mountain meadows and tundra) occupy small areas. A characteristic feature of the vegetation of the southern Sikhote-Alin is a well-defined zonation, due to the height above sea level, the geomorphological structure of the surface and the influence of the sea.