New Highest Altitudes for Some Ground Beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) From the Western Rhodopes Mts. (Bulgaria)

As result of a monitoring survey in the Western Rhodopes Mts. were established nine representatives of the Bulgarian carabid fauna, for which there are no currently published data demonstrating their presence at such a high altitude.These are: Abax carinatus, Asaphidion flavipes, Bembidion stephensii, Harpalus attenuatus, Harpalus pumilus, Microlestes apterus, Paradromius linearis, Poecilus cupreus and Pterostichus leonisi. Five of them were collected on the territory of Grashtitsa Village, another three – near Krastava Village, and one species was found in both localities (both representing new highest altitude records). The establishment of these new altitudes warns about the Given the role of the ground beetles as bioindicators, and on the background of the worldwide environmental trends, we might conclude that this fact is a result of the global climate changes, combined with the presence of some anthropogenic load in the studied region.