Environmental tuning of an insect ensemble: The tenebrionid beetles inhabiting a Mediterranean coastal dune zonation

""\\"Few studies have investigated insect ensembles, i.e. phylogenetically bounded groups of. species that use a similar set of resources within a community. The zonation of dune. vegetation makes these ecosystems ideal for the study of insect ensembles in a short space.. In this study, we investigated if the tenebrionid beetles forming an ensemble on a dune. zonation showed variations in community organization (relative abundances and species. diversity) in different but spatially associated biotopes defined by different plant. communities. Three biotopes (corresponding to European Commission habitat 2110, 2120. and 2230) of a well-preserved Mediterranean dune were sampled using square plots of. 2 2 m at three places. To investigate if there was some association between species and. habitat we applied a x2 test. Variations in community structure parameters were. investigated using Shannon index. The three biotopes host tenebrionid communities with. similar species composition and overall abundances, confirming that they form a single. ensemble. However, tenebrionid species are differently associated with different biotopes. along the zonation, with some species occurring with different proportions among the. biotopes. A local selection process can be postulated as a mechanism responsible for these differences.\\""