ON USING LIGHT-TRAPS IN ECOLOGICAL-STUDIE S OF CARABIDS (COLEOPTERA, CARABIDAE)

Ecological and faunistic structure of the carabid population has been studied on the basis of the data obtained in south-western Moldova usi ng soil and light traps in the field. Differences in the results obtai ned using various traps are discussed. Ecological structure of the car abid population revealed from the data of the light traps was characte rized by prevalence of intrazonal (coastal and wetland hydrophylous) s pecies both in richness and abundance. According to the data of the so il traps meadow, field and steppe euribiont species dominated. In the spectrum of life forms in the beetles, attracted by light, zoophagous species were the most numerous, endogenic stratobionts prevailing amon g them. Soil trapping has revealed the dominance of mixophytophagous b eetles, among which the most diverse were geohortobiont species, the m ost abundant were stratokhortobiont ones associated with herbaceous pl ants. The main specific feature of zoogeographical structure is high d iversity and abundance of Mediterranean species when analysing the dat a from the light traps. On the contrary, the data from the soil traps showed the prevalence of wide-spread species - European-Siberian and T ranspalearctic ones, which were the most numerous in various man-made habitats.