Morphometric Differences in Populations of Carabus lefebvrei Dejean, 1826

Abstract

Several parameters, from physiological processes to environmental pressures, play a role in determining the body size and related morphological parameters in insects. Among a wide range of factors, the most prominent reported influencing body size were ontogenesis, biomechanical constraints, sexual selection, fecundity, size-specific predation, resource quality and availability, overcrowding, competition and temperature (Berven, 1983; Juliano, 1985; Wheeler, 1996; Angilletta, 2003). Most of these factors may vary from one habitat to another and geographic variation in body size has thus been studied extensively (Chown, 2003; Boggs, 2005). On a large geographic scale, clinal variation of morphological parameters within species from different taxa has been found (Hallas, 2002; Blanckenhorn, 2004). The nature of such variation has been addressed frequently along altitudinal and/or latitudinal climatic gradients (Blanckenhorn, 2006; Arthur, 2008). Carabids can be good indicators of environmental disturbance and impact of management (Kotze et al., 2011; Brandmayr et al., 2013).