Spatio-temporal dynamics of resident and immigrating populations of Carcinops pumilio (Coleoptera: Histeridae) in high-rise poultry facilities

The histerid beetle Carcinops pumilio (Erichson) is an important natural predator of the house fly, Musca domestica L., in accumulated poultry house manure. We examined the spatio-temporal dynamics of establishing adult C. pumilio in high-rise poultry facilities using conventional and geostatistical approaches. The growth curves of resident and immigrating populations followed logistic and exponential equations, respectively, and their rates of establishment were statistically the same. Frequency distributions for both populations were strongly positively skewed, and ≈53% of sampling intervals were significantly modeled by the negative binomial. Taylor's power law indicated both populations to be aggregated, and gave excellent least squares regression fits to both populations. Correlograms, a geostatistical tool, suggested little local spatial structure (e.g., 2nd order effects) for either population. The resident population was 'randomly' aggregated: beetles were clustered around randomly distributed aggregations of house fly immatures. The immigrating population exhibited significant spatial trends (e.g., 1st order effects) consistently seen at all sampling intervals. C. pumilio spatial structure was represented primarily by this spatial trend; thus, immigration of C. pumilio may have been either a singular event in time, or initiating at 1 or multiple times from a singular location.