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The beetle fauna of the island of Barbados is summarized. It is now known to contain 202 genera, and 254 species (in 40 families), of which 232 are named at the species level. Undoubtedly, the actual numbers of species on Barbados are much higher than now known. Nine species are possibly endemic to the island, 15 have been intentionally introduced, and 51 have probably been accidentally introduced through human activity. The remaining 157 named species may occur naturally as a result of natural over-water dispersal processes. These species mostly have a wide distribution in the Antilles and Latin America. The total named fauna is thus about 72% naturally occurring, and 28% the result of human-aided dispersal.
Recent extensive and intensive field work by the team of M. A. Ivie on the Lesser Antillean island of Montserrat suggests that a mean of 827 beetle species may be expected on that island. This datum makes possible the generation of hypotheses of the probable beetle species diversity on other islands of the Lesser Antilles as a function of the areas of the islands. Figures are given for the presently known, estimated total, and estimated number of unknown species for each principal island. This predicts that many hundreds (if not thousands) of beetle species remain to be discovered. This is of importance to land management and conservation interests on these rapidly changing and ecologically fragile islands.
The published beetle fauna of the island of St. Lucia is summarized. It contains 135 genera, and 175 species in 25 families. Four species are accidentally introduced by human activities. Twenty three species are endemic (restricted) to the island. Twenty seven species on St. Lucia are shared only with other islands of the Lesser Antilles, and 22 species are widespread Antilles endemics. The remaining 56.6% of the fauna is otherwise mostly one which is widely distributed in the Antilles and the Neotropics. This suggests that it is mostly an immigrant fauna originating in the continental Neotropics. Undoubtedly, the actual numbers of species on St. Lucia are many times higher than now reported and may originally have been as high as around 1400 species. Of the St. Lucia species known to occur on other islands, the largest numbers are shared with Guadeloupe (102), St. Vincent (79), and Martinique (55).
The island arc of the Lesser Antilles lies at the eastern margin of the Caribbean Sea in the Western Hemisphere, and stretches from the eastern end of the islands of the Greater Antilles (at the Virgin Islands), south to a position near the continental islands of Trinidad and Tobago at the north eastern corner of South America. The islands are a part of the West Indian Islands biodiversity “hotspot” and have been available for terrestrial colonization for about the past 15 million years. This is a status report on present knowledge of the beetle faunas of these islands, which is composed of 90 families, 1210 genera, and 2612 recognized species. Many additional species are not yet identified, or are unnamed, or remain to be discovered. Reported for the first time from the Lesser Antilles are four families, 49 genera, 105 species, and 1253 new island records. The largest families are Curculionidae (588 species), Staphylinidae (389 species), Chrysomelidae (181 species), Tenebrionidae (142 species), Cerambycidae (138 species), Scarabaeidae (127 species), and Carabidae (126 species). There are differing patterns of species distributions: 154 species are probably introduced by human activities; 985 are endemic species (limited to a single island); 465 are species endemic to more than one island of the Lesser Antilles; 212 are species limited to just islands of the West Indies; and 800 are native (naturally occurring) species which also have part of their distributional range in North, Central, or South America. Most of the widely distributed beetle fauna has probably come from South America by over-water dispersal. There is no compelling evidence for a vicariance origin of any part of the beetle fauna. Earlier colonists have had more time to form endemic genera (18) and endemic species. The more widely distributed species probably represent distributions achieved in and since the Pleistocene.
The distribution and biology of the beaver beetle, Platypsyllus castoris Ritsema, are summarized for North America. In light of the fact that the beetle uses two beaver species as hosts which have seemingly been separated for some five million years on two continents, it is asked if the Nearctic and Palearctic beetle populations are really the same species.
The beetle fauna of Dominica, Lesser Antilles (Insecta: Coleoptera) : diversity and distribution
(2006)
The beetle fauna of the island of Dominica is summarized. It is presently known to contain 269 genera, and 361 species (in 42 families), of which 347 are named at a species level. Of these, 62 species are endemic to the island. The other naturally occurring species number 262, and another 23 species are of such wide distribution that they have probably been accidentally introduced and distributed, at least in part, by human activities. Undoubtedly, the actual numbers of species on Dominica are many times higher than now reported. This highlights the poor level of knowledge of the beetles of Dominica and the Lesser Antilles in general. Of the species known to occur elsewhere, the largest numbers are shared with neighboring Guadeloupe (201), and then with
South America (126), Puerto Rico (113), Cuba (107), and Mexico-Central America (108). The Antillean island chain probably represents the main avenue of natural overwater dispersal via intermediate stepping-stone islands. The distributional patterns of the species shared with Dominica and elsewhere in the Caribbean suggest stages in a dynamic taxon cycle of species origin, range expansion, distribution contraction, and re-speciation.