Effects of nitrogen application on beetle communities in tea plantations

In contrast to grassland and forest ecosystems, little is known about insect response to nitrogen deposition in agricultural ecosystems. This study was carried out to investigate the effects of short-term (1–2 years) nitrogen application (0, 172.5, 345.0, 690.0, and 1035.0 kg · N ha^?1· y^?1) on beetle communities in tea plantations. A collection of 34 families, 89 species of beetles, was obtained from a tea plantation in Wuyishan, China. Among them, herbivores, predators and detritivores had 52, 29, and eight species, respectively. Species richness, effective diversity and abundance (measured as the number of individuals and insect biomass) of the beetle community were not significantly related to the rate of nitrogen application. However, nitrogen application changed the species distribution and weakly increased the evenness of species distribution, while this did not significantly change the species evenness. Species richness and abundance of herbivores and predators were not significantly related to the rate of nitrogen application. However, there were some variations in trophic responses to nitrogen. Species richness and abundance of detritivores increased with increasing nitrogen application.