At the end of February and in early spring 2019, our “field group” composed of Miroslav Seidl, Lada Jakubíková, Tomáš Kadlec, Ezequiel González, Martin Štrobl, and Michal Knapp started a study focused on overwintering of ground beetles and other epigeic arthropods in non-crop habitats inside fields. We enjoyed mud baths :-). The aim of the research is to find out whether forest and grassy habitat islands isolated within arable fields provide habitats of the same quality for overwintering of ground beetles, spiders and other beneficial groups of arthropods commonly inhabiting intensively managed agricultural landscapes.
