DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.15641698
title: Script and data from: Beetle communities in agricultural landscapes: relative influences of climate, landscape, plant communities and agricultural practices

description: Publication abstract Agricultural field margins are key semi-natural habitats whose conservation and restoration have been encouraged to support biodiversity of agroecosystems which, like insect populations, is collapsing. However, most research on field margin biodiversity has focused on plant communities, with insect populations remaining largely understudied. To address this gap, we leveraged a national monitoring network across France to provide a comprehensive taxonomic and functional characterisation of field margin beetles, which are of significant agricultural interest. We also examined how climate, landscape, vegetation and agricultural practices influence the structure of beetle communities. Using a combination of molecular and morphological approaches and multivariate analyses, we investigated 374 field margins across continental France sampled between 2020 and 2023. Our survey revealed a high diversity of beetles, with 797 species recorded, including hundreds of pollinator and auxiliary species. Estimates support a richness approaching 1,200 species, corresponding to approximately 10% of the French beetle fauna. We also identified five community typologies, each having specific taxonomic and functional characteristics and associated with specific climatic, soil, landscape and agricultural environments. While biogeographical factors were the main drivers shaping these types, local vegetation played a key role in determining species richness. By contrast, agricultural practices appear to be an important structuring factor for both community assemblages and richness. This study provides the first in-depth characterisation of beetle communities in field margins. These habitats support a rich beetle fauna, shaped by a complex interaction between climate, landscape and vegetation, while contrasting agricultural practices exerts a strong and systemic structural influence.

 

File description: 

 

Beetle_trait_database.xlsx is the database of functional traits for the beetles used in this study. The second page of this Excel is a metadata explaining the different traits and possible values.

 

All .qmd files are R (Quarto) scripts developed to characterize beetle communities in field margins across metropolitan France, in connection with the ANR AGRIBIODIV project and based on the 500ENI monitoring network. All scripts are executed within the R project AEE_characterisation_of_beetle_community.Rproj.





0-Accumulation_curves.qmd: Explores sampling effort through species accumulation curves.




1-Characterisation_Taxo_&_Function.qmd and 1-bis-Characterisation_Taxo_&_Function.qmd: Explore, at national-scale, the taxonomic and functional diversity of the beetle communities.




2-Cluster_coleop.qmd: Identifies community typologies and their features using clustering methods and Catdes analysis.




3-BRT.qmd: Investigates the interplay of climatic, pedological, landscape, agricultural, and vegetation factors in shaping beetle richness and abundance through Boosted Regression Trees (BRT) analysis.



The "input.zip" folder contains all datasets required to run the scripts. It includes 10 CSV files, a folder with the shapefile of France, and a metadata file (0-READ_ME_metadata_dataset.xlsx) describing the content and structure of the data.

The "before-3-Autocorrelation.zip" folder is a sub-R project designed to account for spatial autocorrelation in the BRT models, when necessary. It must be run prior to the "3-BRT.qmd".