SHORT COMMUNICATION Red deer (Cervus elaphus Linnaeus, 1758) increasing density effects on species assemblage of ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) in Alpine forests Mauro Gobbi 1 & Natalia Bragalanti 2 & Valeria Lencioni 1 & Luca Pedrotti 2,3 Received: 11 October 2017 /Revised: 11 May 2018 /Accepted: 15 May 2018 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2018 Abstract Red deer (Cervus elaphus) increasing density may trigger several modifications at the ecosystem level. Positive and negative impact of red deer on the invertebrate fauna is known in northern Europe, whereas it is currently unknown in the Alps. In this paper, we tested the impact of red deer density on ground beetles’ (Coleoptera: Carabidae) richness and species distribution in forests of the central-eastern Italian Alps (Stelvio National Park). Carabid beetles were sampled using pitfall traps in nine forest sites with different density of red deer. Carabid species richness was related to elevation, habitat type and red deer density in summer and winter using generalised linear mixed models and canonical correspondence analysis. The high winter red deer density affected positively the carabid species richness. Overgrazing seemed to increase presence of generalist species of dried and unshaded soils and decreasing of specialised species typical of well-preserved Rhododendro-Vaccinietum cover. Accordingly, the presence of patches with different red deer density seems to contribute to maintaining high levels of carabid beetles’ richness, albeit overgrazing needs to be monitored because it is likely to cause a local decrease of specialised forest species. Keywords Alps . Browsing . Carabids . Forestry . Species richness . Ungulates Introduction Over the past decades, ungulates and especially red deer (Cervus elaphus Linnaeus, 1758) populations increased dra- matically both in northern Europe and on the Alps (Apollonio et al. 2010) due to the reduction of large predators (e.g. wolfs, lynx) (Breitenmoser 1998) and changes in forestry, agriculture and hunting management (Allombert et al. 2005; Morellet et al. 2011). Several studies, mainly performed in northern America, northern Europe and Mediterranean countries, have shown that overbrowsing and overgrazing by ungulates affected the richness and diversity of ground-dwelling inver- tebrate fauna (e.g. Allombert et al. 2005; Melis et al. 2006, 2007; Carpio et al. 2014). Even though red deer overabundance represents a recent challenge for the Alps due to their impact on shrubby vegeta- tion and on forest regeneration (Büchsenmeister and Gugganig 2004; Reimoser 2001; Reimoser and Putman 2011), so far no study investigated the effects of red deer grazing on Alpine invertebrates. Some researches on reindeer (Suominen et al. 2003) and red deer (Melis et al. 2006, 2007) in northern Europe investi- gated the effect of deer overgrazing on ground beetle (Coleoptera: Carabidae) assemblages. This could appear as a fairly counterintuitive approach, as carabid beetles are not directly linked to ungulates because of trophic-niche separa- tion (red deer are herbivorous, while carabid beetles are main- ly predators of other invertebrates). Yet, carabids are excellent model organisms from an ecological and conservation standpoint because they may respond to abiotic and biotic Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10344-018-1194-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Mauro Gobbi mauro.gobbi@muse.it 1 Sezione di Zoologia degli Invertebrati e Idrobiologia, MUSE-Museo delle Scienze, Corso del Lavoro e della Scienza 3, 38122 Trento, Italy 2 Provincia Autonoma di Trento, Servizio Foreste e Fauna, Via Trener 3, 38100 Trento, Italy 3 Parco Nazionale dello Stelvio, Via de Simoni 42, 23032 Bormio, Sondrio, Italy European Journal of Wildlife Research https://doi.org/10.1007/s10344-018-1194-x