A chromosome study of twenty species of Spanish carabid beetles (Coleoptera)

The chromosome number of 20 Spanish species of carabid beetles belonging to 12 tribes varies between 2n=20 and 59. Results corroborate that many tribes of Carabidae have a peculiar pattern of karyotypic evolution, causing a great diversity of chromosome number and/or chromosome morphology. Together with numberically stable groups (Carabini, Bembidiini) others like Nebriini and Licinini are found in which there are marked karyotypic differences even between related species. Trends towards packing the genetic material may become extreme in groups such as Brachinini, whereas dissociations lead to marked numerical increases in groups such as Zabrini. A number of these karyotypic conclusions are of great interest for the systematics of Carabidae.