(Insecta: Coleoptera)
Vol. 18
Stewart B. Peck
Abstract
This summary of the beetle fauna of Cuba lists 87 families, 954 genera, and 2,673 species plus three families, three genera, and three species of strepsipterans. Many families in Cuba are poorly or not at all studied and additional species will be found. The fauna contains 1,495 endemic species – species which are naturally limited to Cuba. There are 1,092 native species – these have natural distributions in adjacent or surrounding land masses (the Bahama Islands, Florida and the southeastern United States, Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, México and Central America, and Hispaniola and other Caribbean islands to the east). There are 86 species which are recognized to have been introduced by human activities and many of these are pests of agriculture, forestry, or stored products. The fauna is disharmonic (unbalanced), as is expected for an oceanic island fauna which has long been isolated by water. Several families that occur on the continental margins of the Caribbean are apparently not present in Cuba. Geological history suggests that Cuba has existed as an island and has been available for insect colonization for the past 35 million years. Species movement to and from Cuba may have been more frequent at times of past low sea levels during Pleistocene glacials, when the neighboring continental margins and Caribbean islands were more exposed and the water gaps between them and Cuba were smaller. Twenty-eight genera contain 10 or more species limited to Cuba and may represent island “species swarms.”
Introduction
A fundamental part of the patrimony or natural heritage of every nation is the diversity of its biological species. Cuba is a tropical island nation which is exceptionally well endowed with a rich array of plant and animal species in both marine and terrestrial environments. However, this island with the richest known biota in the West Indies remains little known by most entomologists, biologists, and conservationists outside of Cuba. The Republic of Cuba includes more than 1,600 islands and covers an area of 110,922 km2. Cuba harbours the greatest species diversity of the West Indies (Woods 1989), with more than 6,000 species of plants, 552 species of terrestrial vertebrates, 778 species of fish, probably more than 15,000 species of insects, and an additional large number of myriapods, terrestrial crustaceans, land snails, and arachnids. Genaro and Tejuca (1999) provide a count of 8,312 species of insects in the 29 insect orders now known in Cuba, and they provide an introduction to a review of Cuban insects in general. Cuba also has the highest amount of West Indian endemism (species unique to the country); more than 32% of its vertebrates (approximately 90% of the amphibians and 85% of the reptiles), and 50% of its flowering plants naturally occur only on this island. And many of the endemics are limited to only parts of the island. Of the some 6,000 species of flowering plants, 1,575 occur only in eastern Cuba (López Almirall 1998). Vales et al. (1998) estimate that some 30% of Cuba’s insects are endemic. Many groups, such as vascular plants and birds are now well known in Cuba. Less well known are the invertebrate animals, especially the insects. Of course there are exceptions to this. Some insects have received much study and their species and distributions are well known. Two such examples are the butterflies (Alayo and Hernandez 1987) and the plant-feeding aphids (Holman 1974) of Cuba. Reviews of various groups of terrestrial invertebrates are in the newsletter ”Cocuyo”, published since 1994 by the National Museum of Natural History, Havana, Cuba. It is estimated that Cuba was about 60% covered by various kinds of forest formations at the time of its discovery by Columbus in 1492. Four hundred years of Spanish colonial occupation did not much change this. In the late 1800’s forests still covered an estimated 56% of the island (Smith 1954). With the independence of Cuba from Spain in 1898, and the creation of a preferential tariff for the importation of sugar into the USA, the rate of clearing of native forest cover was greatly accelerated. By 1959 more than 4.4 million ha (hectares) of forests had been destroyed or greatly altered and forested areas had been reduced to only 14% of Cuba’s land area. The deforestation process has now been reversed, and natural and plantation forest cover has increased to approximately 18% of the land area. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations identifies Cuba as now having the lowest annual deforestation rate (0.1%) in Latin America.
The first Cuban national park, Parque Nacional Pico Cristal, was established in 1930, and only five more had been established by 1959. Then, nine additional national parks were established under Public Law 239 in 1959. The first attempt to classify and preserve the country’s remaining natural forests was that of Samek (1968). Later, Miller (1974) provided the basis for establishing the present system of protected areas. To insure adequate representation of all natural landscapes, geographers and biologists evaluated their protected status. These efforts resulted in a law establishing a National System of Protected Areas, which now has more than 200 protected areas that cover 12% of the country. However, only 1-2% of the country is strictly protected and some reserves appear to be too small to effectively preserve the biota they contain. It is estimated that Cuba now has about two million ha of forests, of which 1.7 million ha (85%) consist of natural forests and the remainder is forestry plantations. Of these forested lands, national parks cover 5.1%, wildlife conservation areas are 24.3%, watershed protection areas are 17.0%, coastal protection areas are 18.2%, production forests are 32.7%, and other categories are 2.7% (Santana 1991, Cuevas and García 1982). The purposes of this checklist of Cuban beetles are several. It may be used to help evaluate possible pest status of beetles moving into and out of Cuba through human activities. The advantages of this are evident. Some beetles are pests of agricultural, horticultural, and forest plants; some are pests of stored agricultural products, or are destructive to man-made structures; and some are actual or potential vectors of diseases of livestock, crops, and humans. To unify information on these makes the data more accessible and useful to the benefit of human society. However, most beetles (as is also true for almost all insects) have little or no direct impact on human activities. These species comprise most of the richness of the vibrant natural communities of the island of Cuba. This list may help to stimulate and encourage additional research activity in summarizing biodiversity information on the beetles of Cuba. All the species of Cuban insects have been shaped and formed by the biological and physical processes of evolution by natural selection. The geographic distributions of the species within and beyond Cuba have been shaped by their genetic adaptations to the ecological conditions of the local environments and physiography, and human changes to the landscape. All of this is a part of the patrimony of Cuba. The history of study of insects (and especially of beetles) in Cuba is long and rich. The science of insect taxonomy in Cuba is the most highly developed of any nation in the Caribbean. An understanding of the insect fauna is more advanced for Cuba than for any other island in the Caribbean. Cuba is the natural biological and cultural crossroads of the Caribbean Basin. An understanding of the dynamics of insect movement into and out of Cuba over evolutionary and historical time is important for applied biology and management purposes. Knowledge of insect pests is important for their control. Knowledge of insects in general is an important part of the cultural heritage of all societies, because all these species are fellow occupants of the biosphere.