Habitat type and altitude work in tandem to drive the community structure of dung beetles in Afromontane forest

Stanbrook, Roisin; Wheater, C. Philip; Harris, W. E.; Jones, Martin

doi:10.1007/s10841-020-00289-1

Cited by 11 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 76 publications

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“…The study was conducted within the Aberdare National Park (ANP), Nyeri County, Kenya (0.4167 • S, 36.9500 • E). The ANP is ring-fenced and is contained within the forested Aberdare range, which is an elongated mountain range, running approximately north to south, parallel to the direction of the Rift Valley, 60 km to the west of Mount Kenya [18]. The slopes are steep and densely forested while the foothills have been cleared of forest and are intensively farmed by agro-businesses who grow crops such as pyrethrum and coffee [19] but also by small holder subsistence farmers who rely on cash crops for food stability.…”

Section: Study Sitementioning

confidence: 99%

The Effect of Dung Beetle Size on Soil Nutrient Mobilization in an Afrotropical Forest

Stanbrook

Harris

Jones

et al. 2021

Insects

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Despite recognition of its importance, little is known about functional aspects of soil macrofauna. Here, we investigated the effect of dung beetle body size on macronutrient movement (N, P, K, and C) from elephant dung into soil over 112 days in an Afrotropical forest. We report a large overall effect where more macronutrients are moved into soil over time when beetles are present compared to a control treatment. We also report a large effect of beetle body size on the amount of macronutrient movement, with larger dung beetles moving more nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and carbon from baseline measurements when compared to smaller sized dung beetles. The presence of smaller sized dung beetles showed a significant positive effect on potassium and phosphorus transfer only. We provide the first experimental evidence that the body size of African dungs directly influences the type of macronutrients recycled and discuss the importance of dung beetle body size for maintaining soil fertility.

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Section: Study Sitementioning

confidence: 99%

The Effect of Dung Beetle Size on Soil Nutrient Mobilization in an Afrotropical Forest

Stanbrook

Harris

Jones

et al. 2021

Insects

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“…Because of the higher dung beetle abundance in grasslands, the results obtained with the two habitats merged mirrored those obtained for the grasslands alone, but they were less clear because of the confounding effects of the opposite patterns found in the woodlands. The physical structure of habitats can be an important determining factor in the composition and distribution of dung beetle assemblages [ 49 , 54 , 56 , 57 ]. Our results highlight the importance of distinguishing open assemblages from the forest ones.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These contrasting patterns can be interpreted as a result of a trade-off in the dung beetle response to elevation between the positive influence of the increasing availability of open habitats, which become more frequent with increasing elevations (although the tree-line in the study area is at around 1700–1800 m, woodland cover tends to decrease with elevation along the whole gradient), and the decrease of optimal environmental conditions (because of higher temperature, lower water availability, and higher insulation). A recent study on Afromontane dung beetle assemblages, where dung beetle abundance, richness, and Shannon diversity declined with elevation, showed positive correlations between mean ground cover and dung beetle abundance and species richness, whereas negative correlations were found between mean canopy cover and dung beetle abundance and species richness [ 54 ]. Although from a completely different biome, these results support our conclusion that in the woodlands, diversity increased with increasing elevation because of decreasing tree cover.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Most studies on dung beetle diversity in the mountainous areas in Europe, North America, Southeast Asia, South Africa, and South America have highlighted a decrease in the number of species with increasing altitude (e.g., [37,[44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54]). In the Western Palearctic, dung beetle richness was found to decline with increasing elevation in the Northern French Alps [44,45], in the Southern French Alps [46], in the Sierra Nevada (Spain) [46,47], in Mediterranean grassland sites in the Southern French Alps [49], and in the Kütahya Province in western Turkey [53].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Third, available studies were mostly conducted using species richness as a measure of diversity, with only cursory notes on other aspects of diversity (e.g., negative influences of elevation on the Shannon index and the Shannon-based equitability [ 44 , 45 ] as well as on the Margalef index [ 49 ] for Alpine dung beetle assemblages; negative influence on the Shannon index in an Afromontane forest [ 54 ]; no influence of elevation on the Simpson index in a tropical area in Brazil [ 52 ]). To the best of our knowledge, no research used diversity profiles.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Diversity Patterns of Dung Beetles along a Mediterranean Elevational Gradient

Mantoni

Tsafack

Palusci

et al. 2021

Insects

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Most studies of biodiversity–elevational patterns do not take species abundance into consideration. Hill numbers are a unified family of indices that use species abundance and allow a complete characterization of species assemblages through diversity profiles. Studies on dung beetle responses to elevation were essentially based on species richness and produced inconsistent results because of the non-distinction between different habitats and the use of gradients dispersed over wide areas. We analyzed dung beetle diversity in a Mediterranean mountain (central Italy) for different habitats (woodlands vs. grasslands) and taxonomic groups (scarabaeids and aphodiids). Scarabaeids were the most abundant. Since scarabaeids are able to construct subterranean nests, this indicates that the warm and dry summer climatic conditions of high elevations favor species capable of protecting their larvae from desiccation. Dung beetles were more abundant and diversified in grasslands than in woodlands, which is consistent with their preference for open habitats. In the woodlands, diversity increased with increasing elevation because of increasing tree thinning, whereas, in the grasslands, diversity decreased with elevation because of increasingly harsher environmental conditions. These results indicate a trade-off in the beetle response to elevation between the positive effects of increasing the availability of more suitable habitats and the decrease of optimal environmental conditions.

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Multifactorial structuring in a local guild of coprophilic scarab beetles from theMexicantransition zone: Analyses of ecological hypotheses

Moctezuma,

Halffter,

Escobar

2024

Ecological Entomology

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Different hypotheses have been proposed to explain the environmental gradients‐biotic structuring relationship. Nevertheless, several inconsistencies have arisen when only one hypothesis is chosen to explain the biological diversity patterns. Our aim is to test a multiple hypotheses approach to explain the structure of a coprophilic scarab local guild. Coprophilic Scarabaeoidea beetles were sampled for 33 sites along the study region (Los Chimalapas, Oaxaca, Mexico). Several environmental variables were used to test four hypotheses for geographic gradients: Productivity, ambient energy, habitat heterogeneity and temporal heterogeneity. Generalised linear mixed models were used to test the relationship of the hypotheses on the abundance, species richness and Shannon‐Wiener diversity of the local guild. Moreover, canonical correspondence analysis was performed to analyse the effects on species composition. Abundance was negatively affected by the simultaneous effect between two habitat heterogeneity factors, while both species richness (positive effect) and Shannon‐Wiener diversity (negative effect) were mainly related to productivity, and species composition was mainly explained by habitat heterogeneity. We conclude that multiple hypotheses, both based on species‐energy and heterogeneity, need to be considered to explain biotic setting of communities, ensembles, assemblages, local guilds and other complex biotic systems.

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Habitat type and altitude work in tandem to drive the community structure of dung beetles in Afromontane forest

Cited by 11 publications

References 76 publications

The Effect of Dung Beetle Size on Soil Nutrient Mobilization in an Afrotropical Forest

The Effect of Dung Beetle Size on Soil Nutrient Mobilization in an Afrotropical Forest

Diversity Patterns of Dung Beetles along a Mediterranean Elevational Gradient

Multifactorial structuring in a local guild of coprophilic scarab beetles from theMexicantransition zone: Analyses of ecological hypotheses

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