Distribution of carabid beetles (Coleoptera, Carabidae) across a boreal forest-clearcut ecotone

We studied the occurrence of carabid beetles (Coleoptera, Carabidae) in bor eal forest fragments, their edges, and adjacent clearcuts in central Finlan d. Beetles were collected with pitfall traps along transects extending 60 m from the edge into clearcuts and 60 m into forest interior. Our main findi ngs were that (1) species richness was significantly higher in the clearcut than in the forest fragments, (2) clearcuts hosted many open-habitat speci es, which increased overall species richness in these sites, (3) carabid as semblages in the edges were more similar to forest assemblages than to thos e found in the clearcuts, (4) no edge specialists were found, and (5) open- habitat species did not penetrate into the forest fragments from the clearc ut. Because forest specialists occurred all the way to the edge effects per se do not adversely affect these species, at least in the short term. In t he long term, however, habitat conditions in the edges may deteriorate for interior species because of trees falling over in strong winds, thereby red ucing the size of the fragments and widening the edge zone.