Abstract Ground beetles provide key ecosystem services, including pest and weed seed regulation, yet consistent body size assessment methods are lacking. Body size from literature differs significantly from local field measurements, highlighting the need for site‐specific data. The sum of pronotum and elytra lengths is a reliable, easy‐to‐measure proxy for total body size. Measuring only a subset of individuals accurately estimates assemblage body size distributions, especially mean and variance. We propose practical guidelines to efficiently assess carabid body size in diverse, multi‐species field assemblages.
Maurey et al. (Fri,) studied this question.