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Primary Succession on the Mount St. Helens Volcano: Ground Beetle (Coleoptera: Carabidae) Community Assembly and Species Turnover, 1980–2010

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Book cover Ecological Responses at Mount St. Helens: Revisited 35 years after the 1980 Eruption

Abstract

We documented the recruitment, loss, and turnover of 51 species of ground beetles during 30 years of post-eruption primary succession on the Pumice Plain near Spirit Lake at Mount St. Helens. We observed high species turnover, with many species colonizing, expanding their populations, and then declining to local extinction over periods of 10–15 years. Species patterns were related to soil and vegetation development, accrual of prey species, and natural-history characteristics of the resident species (e.g., trophic role, dispersal traits (flight/ambulatory), microhabitat preferences, seasonal/daily activity times). Overall, species successional turnover rates were substantially higher than plants and vertebrate wildlife species.

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Acknowledgments

Support for the field sampling and laboratory analyses during this study was provided by the National Science Foundation (BSR 84-0721, DBI-9820318 and LTREB Program DEB-0614538); the USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station; the Museum of Southwestern Biology at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque; the Department of Entomology, Michigan State University; the Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton; and the Ecology Center, Utah State University, Logan. We greatly appreciate the comments by three anonymous reviewers that led to improvements in this chapter. We thank the Gifford Pinchot National Forest and Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument for access to our study sites. We also thank all the students and researchers who have participated in the project over the past 30 years, and we are grateful for the insights and inspiration provided by the late Professor John S. Edwards, University of Washington.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Park Service, Valles Caldera National Preserve, P.O. Box 359, 090 Villa Louis Martin, Jemez Springs, NM, 87025, USA

    Robert R. Parmenter

  2. Museum of Southwestern Biology, Department of Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, 87131, USA

    Robert R. Parmenter & Cheryl A. Parmenter

  3. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, 42218 NE Yale Bridge Rd., Amboy, WA, 98601, USA

    Charles M. Crisafulli & Tara E. Blackman

  4. Department of Entomology, A.J. Cook Arthropod Research Collection, Michigan State University, 288 Farm Lane, Rm 243 Natural Sciences Bldg., East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA

    Gary L. Parsons

  5. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, CW-405 Biological Sciences Building, Edmonton, AB, T6G2E9, Canada

    Danny Shpeley

  6. Department of Biology and the Ecology Center, Utah State University, 1688 Willow Way, Logan, UT, 84341, USA

    James A. MacMahon

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  1. Robert R. Parmenter
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  2. Charles M. Crisafulli
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  3. Tara E. Blackman
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  4. Cheryl A. Parmenter
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Correspondence to Robert R. Parmenter .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, Amboy, Washington, USA

    Charles M. Crisafulli

  2. Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA

    Virginia H. Dale

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Parmenter, R.R. et al. (2018). Primary Succession on the Mount St. Helens Volcano: Ground Beetle (Coleoptera: Carabidae) Community Assembly and Species Turnover, 1980–2010. In: Crisafulli, C., Dale, V. (eds) Ecological Responses at Mount St. Helens: Revisited 35 years after the 1980 Eruption. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-7451-1_12

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