The Threat of Urbanization on Beetle Diversity in New Damietta City, Egypt

Urbanization is a global phenomenon, particularly along coastal Mediterranean Sea that represents a threat to natural ecosystem and whole biodiversity due to the reduction of natural environment with land conversion.This impact was investigated on beetle diversity at three urbanized sites in addition to natural control site in New Damietta city, Egypt for 24 successive months (2007-2009). Within each site, 20 pitfall traps were distributed systematically in grid arrangement. Overall, beetle diversity (diversity index, richness and abundance) showed a highly significant difference among study sites and clarified the higher species of diversity, richness and abundance in the natural control site compared to urbanized sites. Moreover, cluster analysis and ordination (DCA) differentiated between natural control site and urbanized sites, while canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) revealed seven important environmental factors from 22 factors that correlated with beetle community. This study clarified that urbanization is not only threat to beetle diversity but also on species composition and environmental characters.