Abstract. Human population growth is expected to drive several species to local extinction. Yet, an unexpected high biodiversity can be found even in densely populated areas. Although a positive correlation between human density and biodiversity can be explained by the intermediate disturbance hypothesis, an alternative possible explanation may come from the tendency of human settlements to be located in sites whose environmental conditions are particularly favourable also for many other animal species. To investigate this hypothesis, we studied the relationships between human population density and species richness of native tenebrionid beetles in small Italian islands. We used partial regression analysis to assess the individual contribution of island area (to account for the species–area relationship), elevation (used as a proxy of environmental diversity), and human density to species richness. We found that tenebrionid diversity increased with human population density even after controlling for area and elevation. This may suggest that islands that were (and are) more hospitable to humans are also those which can be more favourable for tenebrionids.

中文翻译：

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地中海岛屿的人口密度和黄芪甲苷丰富度的共变

摘要。预计人口增长将导致几种物种在当地灭绝。然而，即使在人口稠密的地区，也可以发现意想不到的高生物多样性。虽然人类密度和生物多样性之间的正相关可以用中间干扰假说来解释，但另一种可能的解释可能来自人类住区倾向于位于环境条件也对许多其他动物物种特别有利的地点。为了研究这一假设，我们研究了意大利小岛屿中人口密度与本地黄粉虫甲虫物种丰富度之间的关系。我们使用偏回归分析来评估岛屿面积的个体贡献（以解释物种-面积关系），海拔（用作环境多样性的代表），以及人类密度对物种丰富度的影响。我们发现，即使在控制了面积和海拔之后，黄芪多样性也随着人口密度而增加。这可能表明那些曾经（并且现在）更适合人类居住的岛屿也可能更适合黄芪。