In gravel pits, a mosaic of habitats with various environmental conditions created during mining has a great potential for persistence of many species. We focused on such a mosaic in a gravel pit surrounded by agricultural landscape. We investigated which habitats within sludge deposits in different successional stages (from bare sands to secondary forest) and agriculturally reclaimed area enhanced diversity, species richness and abundance of carabids and supported occurrence of threatened species. Since some of these habitats were extensively managed while others were invaded by the alien plant Solidago gigantea, we also tested the effect of management and the cover of S. gigantea on carabid assemblages. We found a gradient in carabid assemblages from psammophilous ones in bare sandy soils towards similar assemblages in plots with well-developed vegetation cover. Here, carabid assemblages were represented predominantly by common species of agricultural and forest lands without higher habitat requirements. Contrarily, plots with bare sand could serve as a refuge for rare psammophilous carabid species, which cannot occur in surrounding landscape due to vanished suitable habitats. Therefore, keeping some of habitats in early plant successional states is important for maintaining habitat mosaic and for persistence of such species as well. Management of grasslands and cover of S. gigantea had no effect on carabid assemblage. We presume that carabids were likely more affected by vegetation structure and density than species composition.

中文翻译：

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砾石坑的栖息地马赛克可作为甲壳类动物的避难所：以中欧为例

在砾石坑中，采矿过程中产生的具有各种环境条件的生境马赛克具有持久存在许多物种的巨大潜力。我们将重点放在农业景观所包围的砾石坑中的马赛克上。我们调查了污泥沉积中不同演替阶段（从裸砂到次生林）中的哪些栖息地以及农业开垦区提高了多样性，物种丰富性和甲虫的丰度，并支持了受威胁物种的发生。由于这些栖息地中的某些栖息地得到了广泛管理，而其他植物却被外来植物Solidago gigantea入侵，我们还测试了管理的效果和S. gigantea的覆盖在卡拉宾组合上。我们发现从裸露的沙质土壤中的嗜嗜性链节到在具有良好植被覆盖的地块中类似的链节，其锁链组合呈梯度变化。在这里，无脊椎动物组合主要以农业和林地的常见物种为代表，而没有更高的栖息地要求。相反，裸露的沙地可以作为稀有的嗜甲性甲壳类动物的避难所，由于合适的栖息地消失，周围的景观不可能发生这种情况。因此，保持一些植物处于早期演替状态的生境对于维持生境镶嵌以及此类物种的持久性很重要。草地管理和巨型链球菌对锁甲组合没有影响。我们认为，甲壳类可能受植被结构和密度的影响大于物种组成。