"Extensively managed grasslands are a biodiversity hotspots and essential for many plants and animals and represent about 10% of the Swiss farmland. As a part of the ongoing grassland restoration program I helped collecting baseline data in the summer of 2018 (
http://www.cb.iee.unibe.ch/research/lowland_grassland/index_eng.html). Using the collected data on ground beetles (Coleoptera,
Carabidea) and plant community on those extensively managed grasslands in the Swiss lowlands I will pursue my own research question. The aim of my study is to understand and answer the question “
How do plant diversity and plant community composition of grassland habitats in the Swiss lowlands shape ground beetle abundance?”.
Ground beetles occur in almost every terrestrial environment and are widespread all over the world. Since they are good generalist predators of agricultural pests and therefore regulate the abundance of herbivorous arthropods, they are important for the ecosystem functioning of a grassland. Furthermore, ground beetles fulfil a substantial role as food source for many insectivorous vertebrates."
