Description
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 climate change, 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-eight species of ground-beetles are new records to Mozambique, including 4 new subgenera and 2 new genera. Additional information on species phenology and habitat preferences is also provided.
Data Records
The data in this sampling event resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 403 records.
1 extension data tables also exist. An extension record supplies extra information about a core record. The number of records in each extension data table is illustrated below.
This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.
Versions
The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.
How to cite
Researchers should cite this work as follows:
Serrano A R M, Carvalho R, Boieiro M, Borges P A V, Martins da Silva P, Baptista M (2023): Inventory of tiger- and ground-beetles (Coleoptera Caraboidea: Cicindelidae, Carabidae) from the Gorongosa National Park (Mozambique). v1.8. Universidade dos Açores. Dataset/Samplingevent. http://ipt.gbif.pt/ipt/resource?r=goundbeetles_mozambique&v=1.8
Rights
Researchers should respect the following rights statement:
The publisher and rights holder of this work is Universidade dos Açores. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY 4.0) License.
GBIF Registration
This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: ced770f9-7dd5-49c6-8030-795dd409921a. Universidade dos Açores publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by GBIF Portugal.
Keywords
Biodiversity conservation; Carabids; Cicindelids; Diversity assessment; Habitat associations; Miombo forest; Mozambique; New records
Contacts
- Originator
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4282-6073
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Geographic Coverage
This study was carried out in the Gorongosa National Park (18°58′04.84″ S, 34°21′41.64″ E), located in the centre of Mozambique, occupying around 4000 km2 of the Sofala Province
| Bounding Coordinates | South West [-19.57, 34.203], North East [-18.927, 34.827] |
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Taxonomic Coverage
The following Classe and Order are covered: Insecta: Coleoptera; Caraboidea
| Family | Carabidae (ground-beetle), Cicindelidae (tiger-beetes) |
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Temporal Coverage
| Start Date / End Date | 2019-10-25 / 2019-11-25 |
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Project Data
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 climate change, 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-eight species of ground-beetles are new records to Mozambique, including 4 new subgenera and 2 new genera. Additional information on species phenology and habitat preferences is also provided.
| Title | ECOASSESS – A biodiveristy and ECOlogical ASSESSment of soil fauna of Gorongosa National Park (Mozambique) |
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| Funding | This study was supported by the Project ECOASSESS – A biodiveristy and ECOlogical ASSESSment of soil fauna of Gorongosa National Park (Mozambique) (PTDC/BIA¬CBI/29672/2017) funded through national funds by FCT / MCTES (PIDDAC) under the Programme All Scientific Domains. Marie Bartz was contracted by the University of Coimbra (contract nr. IT057-19-7955) through financial support by the Project/R&D Instituition ECOASSESS. Sara Mendes was financially supported by FCiências – Associação para a investigação e Desenvolvimento de Ciências through research grants funded by the Project/R&D Institution ECOASSESS. Mário Boieiro and Sérgio Timóteo were supported by FCT under contracts DL57/2016/CP1375/CT0001 and CEECIND/00135/2017, respectively. |
| Study Area Description | This study was carried out in the Gorongosa National Park (18°58′04.84″ S, 34°21′41.64″ E), located in the centre of Mozambique, occupying around 4000 km2 of the Sofala Province. This region has a tropical climate with mean annual precipitation of 700-900 mm, along with two distinct seasons (dry and wet). GNP annual temperatures range between 15 ◦C and 30 ◦C, with warmer temperatures usually recorded in the wet season (Herrero et al., 2020). This rainy season occurs in the month of November to April and is associated with heavy rainfall, resulting in extensive floodings around Lake Urema, located in the centre of the low plateau. In this low plateau of the park (“lower Gorongosa”), the dominant habitat types range from open savannas (grasslands) to mixed savannas (transitional forests) and forested habitat types comprising mixed forests and Miombo forests. The latter is dominated by trees of the genus Brachystegia (Herrero et al., 2020). Field work was conducted in the main habitat types covering the low plateau of the GNP, namely the miombo forest, mixed dry forest, transitional forest, and grasslands (Stalmans and Beilfuss, 2008; Stalmans et al., 2019). |
| Design Description | ECOASSESS survey focused on the four main habitat types: miombo tropical forest, mixed dry forest, transition forest and grasslands, encompassing the low plateau of the GNP, in a total sampling area of 56130 m2. Within each habitat type, 25 sampling plots of ca. 10 m2 were randomly distributed, with a minimum distance of 1 km between each other. Caraboidea beetle sampling was done by using pitfall traps (Drift, 1951; Greenslade, 1964). At each sampling plot, three pitfall traps (sub-samples) were placed in a triangular arrangement with 5 m of separation between them. Data from pitfall sub-samples were treated separately as pseudo-replicates, which were pooled before data analysis. To include the seasonal effects on community dynamics, Caraboidea beetles were collected on three sampling periods: T1 (25 October to 5 November) and T2 (5-15 November), both during the dry season, and T3 (15-25 November) in the wet season, comprising ten days per sampling window |
The personnel involved in the project:
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Sampling Methods
Caraboidea beetle sampling was done by using pitfall traps (Drift, 1951; Greenslade, 1964). At each sampling plot, three pitfall traps (sub-samples) were placed according to a triangle arrangement, with 5 m of separation between them. Pitfall traps consisted of plastic vials of 10cm diameter and filled to approximately 75-80% capacity with ethyleneglycol (5%). To include the seasonal effects on community dynamics, Caraboidea beetles were collected on three sampling periods: T1 (25 October to 5 November) and T2 (5-15 November), both during the dry season, and T3 (15-25 November) in the wet season, comprising ten days per sampling window. During pitfall collection, the content of each pitfall was enclosed in a cloth bag and all bags were transported in jerricans filled with 100% ethanol to the laboratory at the Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes (University of Lisbon, Portugal) for sorting and taxonomic identification to the species/subspecies level, or morphospecies using several specialized keys. Data from pitfall sub-samples were then pooled before data analysis
| Study Extent | ECOASSESS survey focused on the four main habitat types, i.e. miombo tropical forest, mixed dry forest, transition forest and grasslands, encompassing the low plateau of the Gorongosa National Park, in a total sampling area of 56130 m2. These habitats were selected considering the ecosystem changes and complex dynamics due to seasonal flooding and human disturbance in this area of the park. Within each habitat type, 25 sampling plots were randomly distributed, with a minimum distance of 1 km between each other |
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| Quality Control | All carabid and cicindelid specimens were taxonomically identified by Artur R. M. Serrano. |
Method step description:
- Whenever possible the identification was made to the subspecies or species level, otherwise, the specimens were separated as morphospecies
Collection Data
| Collection Name | Carabidae of Gorongosa |
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| Collection Identifier | ECOASSESS |
| Specimen preservation methods | Dried |
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Additional Metadata
| Alternative Identifiers | ced770f9-7dd5-49c6-8030-795dd409921a |
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| http://ipt.gbif.pt/ipt/resource?r=goundbeetles_mozambique |