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Potential Habitat Factors Influencing Carrion Beetles Communities Of Palouse Prairie Remnants, Chris Looney, Benjamin T. Caldwell, Timothy D. Hatten, Christopher Lorion, Sanford D. Eigenbrode

Proceedings of the North American Prairie Conferences

The bunchgrass prairies of the Palouse region in eastern Washington state and adjacent Idaho were almost completely converted to agriculture in the past century. Today, prairie habitat exists only on small remnants scattered across the landscape. The invertebrate fauna of these habitat remnants is poorly known, both in terms of species diversity and community composition. Pitfall traps baited with carrion were used to sample carrion beetles (Coleoptera: Silphidae) during June and July of 2003. Prairie remnants were selected based on size to test whether habitat area influenced the diversity of this important insect community. Three size classes were identified; greater …