Jaskuła Radomir, Kolanowska Marta, Michalski Marek, Schwerk Axel
Department of Invertebrate Zoology and Hydrobiology, Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection, University of Lodz, Banacha 12/16, 90-237 Łódź, Poland.
Department of Geobotany and Plant Ecology, Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection, University of Lodz, Banacha 12/16, 90-237 Łódź, Poland.
Insects. 2021 Apr 20;12(4):369. doi: 10.3390/insects12040369.
The American red flat bark beetle, , is a wide distributed saproxylic species divided into two subspecies: ssp. restricted to eastern regions of North America and ssp. occurring only in western regions of this continent. Unique morphological features, including body shape and body coloration, make this species easy to recognize even for amateurs. Surprisingly, except some studies focused on physiological adaptations of the species, the ecology of was almost unstudied. Based on over 500 records collected by citizen scientists and deposited in the iNaturalist data base, we studied phenological activity of adult beetles, habitat preferences and impact of future climate change for both subspecies separately. The results clearly show that spp. and ssp. can be characterized by differences in phenology and macrohabitat preferences, and their ranges do not overlap at any point. Spp. is found as more opportunistic taxon occurring in different forests as well as in urban and agricultural areas with tree vegetation always in elevations below 500 m, while elevational distribution of ssp. covers areas up to 2300 m, and the beetle was observed mainly in forested areas. Moreover, we expect that climate warming will have negative influence on both subspecies with the possible loss of proper niches at level even up to 47-70% of their actual ranges during next few decades. As the species is actually recognized as unthreatened and always co-occurs with many other species, we suggest, because of its expected future habitat loss, to pay more attention to conservationists for possible negative changes in saproxylic insects and/or forest fauna in North America. In addition, as our results clearly show that both subspecies of differ ecologically, which strongly supports earlier significant morphological and physiological differences noted between them, we suggest that their taxonomical status should be verified by molecular data, because very probably they represent separate species.
美洲红扁树皮甲虫（学名：）是一种广泛分布的蛀木性物种，分为两个亚种：亚种局限于北美洲东部地区，亚种仅出现在该大陆的西部地区。独特的形态特征，包括体型和体色，使得即使是业余爱好者也很容易识别该物种。令人惊讶的是，除了一些关注该物种生理适应性的研究外，对其生态学的研究几乎没有。基于公民科学家收集并保存在iNaturalist数据库中的500多条记录，我们分别研究了成年甲虫的物候活动、栖息地偏好以及未来气候变化对两个亚种的影响。结果清楚地表明，亚种和亚种在物候和宏观栖息地偏好上存在差异，它们的分布范围在任何一点都不重叠。亚种被发现是一个更具机会主义的分类群，出现在不同的森林以及城市和农业地区，树木植被海拔始终低于500米，而亚种的海拔分布覆盖高达2300米的地区，且该甲虫主要在森林地区被观察到。此外，我们预计气候变暖将对两个亚种都产生负面影响，在未来几十年内，甚至可能导致高达其实际分布范围47 - 70%的适宜生态位丧失。由于该物种目前被认为没有受到威胁，并且总是与许多其他物种共存，我们建议，鉴于其未来预期的栖息地丧失，保护主义者应更多地关注北美蛀木性昆虫和/或森林动物群可能出现的负面变化。此外，由于我们的结果清楚地表明的两个亚种在生态上存在差异，这有力地支持了之前指出的它们之间显著的形态和生理差异，我们建议通过分子数据来验证它们在分类学上的地位，因为它们很可能代表不同的物种。
