BIOCENOTIC DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES OF THE MELYRIDAE FAMILY (COLEOPTERA) IN THE CONDITIONS OF THE TRANSCARPATHIAN LOWLAND

Abstract

The paper analyzes the biocenotic distribution of the Melyridae beetles in the conditions of the Transcarpathian lowland. In total, 26 species of this family belonging to two subfamilies and ten genera were found in the region. Most species of melirid beetles are typical hortobionts, some species are thamnobionts. Considering the fact that this group of Coleoptera is a part of meadow and forest insect communities, and species of the family are typical components in them, melirid beetles can serve as indicators of stability of natural meadow and meadow-shrub ecosystems. That is why the study of the community composition of melirid beetles and their biocenotic distribution is relevant in the context of forming a holistic view of the natural ecosystems functioning. Within the territory of the Transcarpathian lowland the Melyridae family is widespread in various biocenoses, in particular, in the coenoses of terrestrial meadows, floodplain meadows with meadow-swamp vegetation, in broadleaved lowland forest coenoses, in rare forest coenoses of the Klynovetska and Yulivska mountains (massive of the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve), in anthropotransformed cenoses as cereal agrocenoses, orchards, vineyards, as well as in riverbed areas of rivers and lakes. According to research results, the most numerous species of subfamily Malachiinae in the conditions of the Transcarpathian lowland are Malachius bipustulatus (Linnaeus, 1758) and Axinotarsus marginalis (Laporte de Castelnau, 1840), of subfamily Dasytinae is Dolichosoma lineare (Rossi, 1792). Rare species are representatives of Malachiinae: Clanoptilus affinis (Ménétriés, 1832) and Attalus analis (Panzer, 1796), which are found in dry meadows and in oak forests of the Transcarpathian lowland, respectively. The calculation of Shannon’s biodiversity index proves that the most diverse communities of the region are communities of terrestrial meadows (index value 2.10), and the Margalef index, as an indicator of species richness, is also the highest for the same biocenoses: 3.17. The minimum values of the Shannon (0.69) and Margalef (0.31) indices were calculated for coastal biocenoses, which is obviously explained by the small number of species (only 2) and the low number of specimens of these species.