Carabid beetles are important biological control agents in a range of agricultural crops throughout the world. This paper outlines the history of carabid research in Australia to provide a point of reference with European and USA studies. The ecological and applied agricultural knowledge of the Australian fauna lags far behind that of Europe and the USA but we are now at the point of using the available knowledge to assess agricultural ecosystems. This paper describes how aspects of the biology and ecology of the Australian carabid fauna differ from that described in published work on other carabid populations. In particular, this paper describes how it may be possible to identify dominant (key) species in particular ecosystems (such as pasture or cropping) and use these species as indicators of ecosystem health.