The contributions included in this book cover a broad spectrum of research into this beetle family, with an emphasis on various aspects of ecology and evolution. They deal both with individual carabid species, for example in studies on population and reproductive biology or life history in general, and with ground beetle communities, as exemplified in papers treating assemblages in natural habitats, on agricultural land and in forests. Disciplines range from biogeography and faunistics, through morphology, taxonomy and phylogenetics, ecophysiology and functional ecology, to population, community, conservation and landscape ecology.
The papers in this volume were amongst those presented at the 8th European Carabidologists' Meeting - 2nd International Symposium of Carabidology, which took place at the Catholic University of Louvain (U.C.L.) in Louvain-la-Neuve and at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (R.B.I.N.S.) in Brussels, Belgium, September 1-4, 1992.
Introduction. 1. Biogeography and evolutionary ecology. 2. Life histories and population ecology. 3. Community ecology and conservation. 4. Ground beetles in agriculture and forestry. Index.