It could be shown, that the differences between two carabid populations on rape fields under intensive management and reduced management (50% N‐input, no insecticide application) were not as striking as one might expect. Despite the fact that total individual numbers of the carabid populations, total species numbers, and number of dominant species were clearly higher in the field under reduced management, RENKONEN’s Re showed only a slight difference between the fields with nearly three‐quarter correspondence in dominance structure. The presence of five more carabid species on the field under reduced management is underlined by the low values of JACCARD’s species identity and WAINSTEIN’s Kw index of similarity. On the other hand, according to SHANNON‐WEAVER’s Hs for species diversity and SHANNON’s Es for evenness, the differences between the fields are minor. Even if only the dominant species were taken into account, the similarity between both fields was obvious, despite the fact that in the field under reduced management two more dominant carabid species were found. In both fields, phytophagous Amara similata was the most abundant species. Nevertheless, a special oil seed rape carabid coenosis seems to exist as well, as one was found for cereal crops and for root crops, which might consist of A. similata, Amara aenea, Harpalus affinis, Poecilus cupreus, Pseudophonus rufipes, and Pterostichus melanarius.
For P. cupreus, which was chosen as a typically predacious and beneficial carabid species in oil seed rape, biomass, fecundity and determination of the degree of gut filling also showed no differences for the fields. Even the length of elytrae as an indicator for nutritional situation in the preceding year showed no difference. Only the phenology of P. cupreus showed an obvious shift of the peak in activity‐density in the intensively managed field, to a later date in the season, compared with the field under reduced management. The latter reflects the usual spring peak. No sufficient explanation was found for the peak 4 weeks later on the intensively managed field. It can be assumed that a less sufficient food supply (higher numbers of potential food, e.g. larvae of Meligethes spp. in the field under reduced management), due to insecticide input, or long‐term biocide impact on P. cupreus, or a faster growth of rape plants due to high nitrogen input resulting in a less favourable microclimate on the intensively managed field, was responsible for this later peak in activity‐density.
To conclude, the relations between the predacious carabids, their potential prey, and the abiotic factors in the habitats seem to be much more complicated than assumed. There is a strong hint that the impact of single parameters such as field management influencing the phenology change obviously over the carabids activity period.
