Livestock grazing impact differently on the functional diversity of dung beetles depending on the regional context in subtropical forests
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Guerra Alonso C
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8803855 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:The role of deterministic and stochastic mechanisms in community assembly is a key question in ecology, but little is known about their relative contribution in dung beetle assemblages. Moreover, in human modified landscapes these mechanisms are crucial to understand how biodiversity can be maintained in productive agroecosystems. We explored the assembly mechanisms driving dung beetle assemblages in forests and grazed grassland patches, and assessed the role of dung availability, soil hardness and moisture, elevation and land use heterogeneity as environmental predictors of functional diversity. To determine the underlying assembly mechanisms, we estimated functional diversity metrics (functional richness, evenness and divergence) and their departure from the predicted values by null models. We also used GLMs to assess the influence of environmental variables on functional diversity. In most cases, stochastic processes prevailed in structuring dung beetle assemblages and, consequently, environmental variables were not good predictors of dung beetle functional diversity. However, limiting similarity was found as a secondary mechanism with an effect on dung beetle assemblages in grasslands. Our results highlight the importance of stochastic processes that may reflect a metacommunity dynamic. Therefore, restoring landscape connectivity might be more important than habitat quality for the conservation of these functionally diverse beetle assemblages.
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Project description:The response of biological communities to human disturbances depends on factors acting at local and regional scale and on the interaction between them. We compared the response of native forest dung beetle communities to cattle grazing under regional contexts differing on precipitation patterns (Atlantic forest and humid and dry Chaco). Through multivariate and GLMM analyses we contrasted richness and composition across regions and land uses and explored the role of local and regional variables accounting for those changes. We captured a total of 44101 individuals of 109 species. The interaction between local and regional variables influenced the response to livestock management. In the two wet regions (humid Chaco and Atlantic forest) diversity was similar in the native forest regardless of cattle presence but differs strongly in open pastures. In contrast, in the dry Chaco, differences between native forest and land use were not evident. Vegetation structure was a major determinant of species richness, whereas regional climate determined differences in species composition. We concluded that the response of dung beetles to livestock management cannot be generalized for all biomes. In dry ecosystems, dung beetles are probably pre-adapted to environmental conditions imposed by cattle ranching whereas in wet ecosystems the impact of cattle ranching is more significant.
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Project description:BackgroundThe Amazon Forest is one of the world's most biodiverse ecosystems and yet its protected areas are understudied concerning insects and other invertebrates. These organisms are essential for tropical forests due to their ecological processes, with some species being very sensitive to habitat disturbances. Dung beetles (Coleoptera, Scarabaeidae, Scarabaeinae) have been used as bioindicators for more than 30 years and were surveyed to assess the insect biodiversity of two sustainable-use forest reserves in the Brazilian Amazon.New informationWe report inventories of dung beetles from two Amazonian forest reserves in Pará State, Brazil: the Tapajós National Forest and the Carajás National Forest. Surveys were carried out with baited-pitfall traps installed in 2010, 2016, 2017 and 2019. We collected a total of 3,772 individuals from 19 genera and 96 species. We highlight the importance of Amazonian protected areas as refugia for insect biodiversity, particularly dung beetles, which contribute to many key ecosystem processes.
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Project description:Bioprospeccion de peptidos antimicrobianos de escarabajos coprofagos del paisaje cultural cafetero
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Project description:Edge effects alter insect biodiversity in several ways. However, we still have a limited understanding on simultaneous responses of ecological populations and assemblages to ecotones, especially in human modified landscapes. We analyze edge effects on dung beetle populations and assemblages between livestock pastures and native temperate forests (Juniperus and pine-oak forests (POFs)) to describe how species abundances and assemblage parameters respond to edge effects through gradients in forest-pasture ecotones. In Juniperus forest 13 species avoided the ecotones: six species showed greater abundance in forest interior and seven in pasturelands, while the other two species had a neutral response to the edge. In a different way, in POF we found five species avoiding the edge (four with greater abundance in pastures and only one in forest), two species had a neutral response, and two showed a unimodal pattern of abundance near to the edge. At the assemblage level edge effects are masked, as species richness, diversity, functional richness, functional evenness, and compositional incidence dissimilarity did not vary along forest-pasture ecotones. However, total abundance and functional divergence showed higher values in pastures in one of the two sampling localities. Also, assemblage similarity based on species' abundance showed a peak near to the edge in POF. We propose that conservation efforts in human-managed landscapes should focus on mitigating current and delayed edge effects. Ecotone management will be crucial in livestock dominated landscapes to conserve regional biodiversity and the environmental services carried out by dung beetles.
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Project description:The process of seed dispersal of many animal-dispersed plants is frequently mediated by a small set of biotic agents. However, the contribution that each of these dispersers makes to the overall recruitment may differ largely, with important ecological and management implications for the population viability and dynamics of the species implied in these interactions. In this paper, we compared the relative contribution of two local guilds of scatter-hoarding animals with contrasting metabolic requirements and foraging behaviours (rodents and dung beetles) to the overall recruitment of two Quercus species co-occurring in the forests of southern Spain. For this purpose, we considered not only the quantity of dispersed seeds but also the quality of the seed dispersal process. The suitability for recruitment of the microhabitats where the seeds were deposited was evaluated in a multi-stage demographic approach. The highest rates of seed handling and predation occurred in those microhabitats located under shrubs, mostly due to the foraging activity of rodents. However, the probability of a seed being successfully cached was higher in microhabitats located beneath a tree canopy as a result of the feeding behaviour of beetles. Rodents and beetles showed remarkable differences in their effectiveness as local acorn dispersers. Quantitatively, rodents were much more important than beetles because they dispersed the vast majority of acorns. However, they were qualitatively less effective because they consumed a high proportion of them (over 95%), and seeds were mostly dispersed under shrubs, a less suitable microhabitat for short-term recruitment of the two oak species. Our findings demonstrate that certain species of dung beetles (such as Thorectes lusitanicus), despite being quantitatively less important than rodents, can act as effective local seed dispersers of Mediterranean oak species. Changes in the abundance of beetle populations could thus have profound implications for oak recruitment and community dynamics.
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Project description:Dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeoidea) serve a significant role in regulating ecosystem services on rangelands. However, the influence of grazing management on dung beetle communities remains largely unknown. The purpose of this study was to investigate dung beetle abundance and diversity throughout the grazing season in the Nebraska Sandhills Ecoregion. Grazing treatments included: continuous grazing (CONT), low-stocking rotational grazing (LSR), high-stocking rotational grazing (HSR), and no grazing (NG). The abundance and diversity of dung beetles were measured in the 2014 and 2015 grazing seasons using dung-baited pitfall traps. Dung beetle abundance for each grazing treatment was characterized through four indices: peak abundance, species richness, Simpson's diversity index, and Simpson's evenness. A total of 4,192 dung beetles were collected through both years of trapping in this study. Peak abundance and species richness were greater in grazed treatments when compared to NG in both years. Peak abundance in the HSR was 200% (2014) and 120% (2015) higher than in the LSR. Species richness in the HSR was 70% (2014) and 61% (2015) higher than in the LSR, and 89% (2014) and 133% (2015) higher than in CONT. Simpson's diversity index was lower in the NG and CONT treatments when compared to the LSR or HSR treatments for both years. We conclude that rotational grazing, regardless of stocking density, promoted dung beetle abundance and diversity within the Nebraska Sandhills Ecoregion.
| S-EPMC8223031 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Understanding the ecological mechanisms driving beta diversity is a major goal of community ecology. Metacommunity theory brings new ways of thinking about the structure of local communities, including processes occurring at different spatial scales. In addition to new theories, new methods have been developed which allow the partitioning of individual and shared contributions of environmental and spatial effects, as well as identification of species and sites that have importance in the generation of beta diversity along ecological gradients. We analyzed the spatial distribution of dung beetle communities in areas of Atlantic Forest in a mainland-island scenario in southern Brazil, with the objective of identifying the mechanisms driving composition, abundance and biomass at three spatial scales (mainland-island, areas and sites). We sampled 20 sites across four large areas, two on the mainland and two on the island. The distribution of our sampling sites was hierarchical and areas are isolated. We used standardized protocols to assess environmental heterogeneity and sample dung beetles. We used spatial eigenfunctions analysis to generate the spatial patterns of sampling points. Environmental heterogeneity showed strong variation among sites and a mild increase with increasing spatial scale. The analysis of diversity partitioning showed an increase in beta diversity with increasing spatial scale. Variation partitioning based on environmental and spatial variables suggests that environmental heterogeneity is the most important driver of beta diversity at the local scale. The spatial effects were significant only at larger spatial scales. Our study presents a case where environmental heterogeneity seems to be the main factor structuring communities at smaller scales, while spatial effects are more important at larger scales. The increase in beta diversity that occurs at larger scales seems to be the result of limitation in species dispersal ability due to habitat fragmentation and the presence of geographical barriers.
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Project description:The Italian fauna includes about 170 species/subspecies of dung beetles, being one of the richest in Europe. We used data on dung beetle distribution in the Italian regions to investigate some macroecological patterns. Specifically, we tested if species richness decreased southward (peninsula effect) or northward (latitudinal gradient). We also considered the effects of area (i.e., the species-area relationship), topographic complexity, and climate in explaining dung beetle richness. Finally, we used multivariate techniques to identify biotic relationships between regions. We found no support for the peninsula effect, whereas scarabaeines followed a latitudinal gradient, thus supporting a possible role of southern areas as Pleistocene refuges for this group of mainly thermophilic beetles. By contrast, aphodiines were more associated with cold and humid climates and do not show a distinct latitudinal pattern. In general, species richness was influenced by area, with the Sardinian fauna being however strongly impoverished because of its isolation. Faunal patterns for mainland regions reflect the influence of current ecological settings and historical factors (Pleistocene glaciations) in determining species distributions.
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Project description:Abstract An important service in many ecosystems is the turnover and degradation of dung deposited by cattle. Dung beetles are the primary group of insects responsible for dung turnover, and factors affecting their abundance and distribution thus impact dung degradation. Lands lost to grazing due to dung buildup and pasture contamination total millions of acres per year in US pastures. We evaluated the structural differences in dung beetle assemblages in natural grasslands versus a managed agroecosystem in subtropical southeastern Florida (USA). We measured the direct effect of dung longevity when dung beetle fauna normally inhabiting dung pats were excluded. Our results indicate dung beetle abundance, functional diversity, and species richness have a substantial impact on the rate of dung turnover in subtropical pastoral lands with ~70% of dung removed from the soil surface after three months. Functional diversity and evenness did not have a significant positive effect on dung removal in managed, versus natural grasslands demonstrating a strong relationship between dung beetle assemblage composition and delivery of a key ecological process, dung degradation. We suggest the importance of trees, which provide a thermal refuge for beetles, should be dispersed within matrixes of open pasture areas and within proximity to adjacent closed‐canopy hammocks to facilitate the exchange of dung beetles between habitats and therefore maintain the provisioning of dung degradation services by dung beetle assemblages. An important service in many ecosystems is the turnover and degradation of dung deposited by cattle. Dung beetles are the primary group of insects responsible for dung turnover, and factors affecting their abundance and distribution thus impact dung degradation. Our results indicate dung beetle abundance, functional diversity, and species richness has a substantial impact on the rate of dung turnover in subtropical pastoral lands with ~70% of dung removed from the soil surface after three months.
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