While no detailed records detailing the larval development of Carabus species in China are currently available, some Carabus spp. in Europe are known to live for several years and reproduce more than once, and an individual’s development can take more than one season in poor environmental conditions

or when food availability is low ( Lövei and Sunderland, 1996). Such characteristics could partly explain the observed inter-annual variations. Overall, this study provides important insights into the different carabid communities found in plantations and secondary forests in northern China. Despite the history of widespread deforestation in the 1960s, forest specialist species preferring closed forest canopies appear to have persisted, presumably in remote, small pristine

forest islands in the mountainous landscapes, from where they successfully re-colonised the Cilengitide manufacturer newly-establishing secondary forests and forest plantations. Different forest types furthermore clearly support distinct assemblages, with north-exposed birch and larch forests harbouring highly abundant, species-poor and homogeneous ground beetle communities, while secondary mixed forests contain the highest α-diversity in ground beetles, hence contributing significantly to γ-diversity. At the same time, mixed forest beetle assemblages are distinctly different to both, pine and oak forests. The high degree of spatial aggregation exhibited by many carabid species and their low overall abundances support our assumptions that they are chiefly limited to small, distinct habitat AT13387 mw patches. The most appropriate restoration strategy for carabid beetle diversity and the potential associated control of invertebrate pest species across this forest landscape therefore needs to involve the maintenance of both within-stand and between-stand heterogeneity, with particular emphasis on variations of canopy closure. Future forest plantations should be developed with a strong focus on locally native species to further support the colonisation of remnant populations of forest

specialists into China’s new forests. This study was cAMP facilitated by the support and generous funding of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Fellowship for International Scientists (Fellowship Number 2011T2S18), the “111 Program” from the Bureau of China Foreign Expert – Ministry of Education (contract no. 2008-B08044) and the National Science Foundation of China (no. 31270478). Eleanor Warren-Thomas was also supported by a NERC Masters Studentship. We are very grateful to Professor Liang Hongbin and Liu Ye from the Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, who assisted in identification of a number of difficult species. Duan Meichun provided valuable assistance with specimen preparation. Professor Yu Xiao-Dong kindly provided reprints of his papers that were not available in the UK.