Abstract: In this paper, the diversity of darkling beetle community in the marginal zone of the Gurbantonggut Desert was studied after investigating the spatial distribution of darkling beetles in the study area. Six hundred trappers were set to catch darkling beetles in the desert during the period from May to July 2010. The result were as follows: (1) The dominant beetle species were in a clear trend to select microhabitats; (2) The biodiversity of darkling beetles was low at landscape scale, and the engenvalues (including the activity density, species richness, biodiversity index and dominance index) of darkling beetles were quite different from different landscapes: (3) The interference of nig agricultural projects caused the low species richness and low evenness index. But the difference of which was not significant. The decrease of diversity index and the increase of dominance index reached to a significant level (P<0.05). The activity density of Library[JP8]’s[JP] east turtle beetle and smooth fat desert beetle increased, but that of the others decreased. Darkling beetles have a significance of indicating the fragile desert habitats.

Key words: font-family: 宋体, mso-bidi-font-family: 宋体, mso-font-kerning: 1.0pt, mso-ansi-language: EN-US, mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN, darkling beetle')">mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">darkling beetle, ')">habitat, ')">activity density, ')">community composition, ')">species diversity, Gurbantonggut Desert