Orchard management influences both functional and taxonomic ground beetle (Coleoptera,Carabidae) diversity in South-East France Hedde Mickaël a, *, Mazzia Christophe b , Decaëns Thibaud c , Nahmani Johanne c , Pey Benjamin a , Thénard Jodie a , Capowiez Yvan d a INRA, UR 251 Pessac, F-78026 Versailles Cedex, France b UMR 7263, IMBE Université d'Avignon et des Pays du Vaucluse, 84916 Avignon Cedex 9, France c CNRS, UMR 5175, CEFE, Campus du CNRS, 1919, route de Mende, 34293 Montpellier Cedex 5, France d INRA, UR 1115, Domaine St-Paul – Site Agroparc, CS 40509, 84914 Avignon Cedex, France A R T I C L E I N F O Article history: Received 28 July 2014 Received in revised form 24 November 2014 Accepted 25 November 2014 Available online xxx Keywords: Apple orchard Organic farming Integrated pest management Conventional farming Pesticides A B S T R A C T The impact of pest management strategies on the soil biota is crucial since it includes a lot of recognized beneficial animals. Commercial orchards are precisely managed crops on which large amounts of pesticides are used. We aimed to provide a clear understanding of the response of ground beetles communities to such strategies. Field sampling was carried out in three seasons in 15 commercial orchards. We studied ground beetle communities through their activity-density, and their structural and functional diversity. We found activity-density to be solely influenced by season and species richness by orchard management but only in summer. Differences in orchard management selected individuals on the basis of their morphology (in relation with their stature, walk, flight and nutrition) and their ecological preferences (food and habitat diversity). Our results illustrate the value of trait-based approaches in depicting orchard management effects on the within-year dynamics of ground beetles, when combined with taxonomic approaches. ã 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction New policies strive for implementation of commercially viable programs that reduce the use of broad-spectrum neural-active insecticides, as for instance in France (Journal Officiel de la République Française 09/11/2012). Different pest control strategies are being developed, including, for instance, integrated pest management and organic farming (Way and van Emden, 2000; Simon et al., 2010, 2011). In principle, they are supposed to maintain an acceptable level of control of pest populations with little effect on non-target species (Simon et al., 2010). Commercial orchards are precisely managed crops in which productivity is mainly sustained by the use of large amounts of pesticides. It is however still difficult to determine the net impact of modification of pest control strategies on agroecosystem biodiversity, as studies on that topic are still scarce in the scientific literature, and strongly biased towards a few groups of animals. For instance, studies reported effects of pest control strategies in orchards on biodiversity of birds (Bouvier et al., 2005), arboreal insects (Andreev et al., 2006) and arboreal spiders (Pekár, 1999), whereas relatively few papers have addressed the impacts on soil biota (Paoletti et al., 1998), a group that includes a lot of recognized beneficial animals. For example, carabid beetles are widespread insects that occur in many agricultural ecosystems and are considered as potential control agents of a wide array of economically essential arthropods. Rainio and Niemelä (2003) reviewed that carabids are frequently used to indicate habitat alteration. They have been used in grasslands and boreal forests where community param- eters were modified along a habitat disturbance gradient. A common trend is that large, poorly dispersing specialist species decrease with increased disturbance while small generalist species with good dispersal ability increase. The majority of Carabidae can be best categorized as opportunistic feeders (but mainly zoo- phagous and granivorous) that take whatever food source is most readily available including many lepidopteran and homopteran apple pests (Larochelle, 1990). The presence of ground beetles (either at adult of larval stage) on the soil surface over the entire growing season renders them highly sensitive to the long-term effects of plant protection products sprayed onto the trees (Epstein et al., 2001). Sublethal effects of pesticides may affect fecundity, predation habits, fertility, developmental time, longevity, * Corresponding author. Tel.: +33 130833270; fax: +33 130833259. E-mail address: mhedde@versailles.inra.fr (H. Mickaël). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apsoil.2014.11.014 0929-1393/ ã 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Applied Soil Ecology 88 (2015) 26–31 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Applied Soil Ecology journal homepage: www.else vie r.com/locate /apsoil