Abstract
Purpose: Soil insects mediate plant-soil interactions by fragmenting and decomposing litter that forms the base of soil food webs and through predator-prey interactions. Plant communities, in turn, shape soil insect communities via the quality, availability, and diversity of their litters. However, these drivers have rarely been examined in concert even though describing soil insect community patterns is critical for mitigating the effects of global environmental changes. Methods: Here, we evaluated the effects of tree diversity, density, and functional groups on ground beetle (Carabidae) diversity, density, and community composition in four eastern temperate forest sites in the National Ecological Observatory Network. Results Though we expected that higher tree diversity and density would, respectively, lead to higher diversity and density ground beetle communities, we found little evidence to support this hypothesis. Instead, evergreen tree abundance strongly shaped ground beetle diversity, density, and community composition. Specifically, evergreen plots as defined by National Land Cover Database hosted lower density ground beetle communities than deciduous plots. Similarly, ground beetle Shannon diversity and density decreased as the relative abundance of evergreen tree species increased. Conclusions: Although further study is needed to explicitly link litter quality with soil insect communities, the resource environments created by trees with varying leaf habits appear to be a dominant force driving ground beetle community diversity and density patterns.