Dung beetles persist in long-term forest fragments but may suffer from hunting of large animals
Dung beetles persist in long-term forest fragments but may suffer from hunting of large animals
mongabay.com
June 9, 2008
Dung beetles bury animal dung to use as their own food and to provide food for their young. This group of beetles is especially prevalent in tropical rainforests. Their burying behavior incidentally contributes to ecosystem functioning and health by the removal of waste, control of dung-breeding pests, soil fertilization and aeration, and the secondary burial of intact seeds found in mammal feces. Because of their important roles in ecosystems, it is important to know how they are affected by habitat change, in this case, habitat fragmentation.
While several studies have examined the effects of recent fragmentation on these beetles, a new study of dry forest fragments at Alter do Chão, Pará, Brazil, sought to determine how dung beetle communities in long-term fragments (at least 150 years old) fare.
Using a series of pitfall traps set in fragments of different size, Kevina Vulinec of Delaware State University and colleagues from the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia determined that fragment size had less effect on number of species or abundance than the isolation of the fragment from large forest tracts. They also found that one as-yet-unidentified dominant species, while not occurring outside forest fragments in the savanna matrix, increased in abundance with less dense tree vegetation. The researchers say the presence of large mammals, such as howler monkeys, that still occur in these fragments benefits dung beetles by providing them with food. Nevertheless, the authors suggest that declines in forest mammals through habitat destruction and hunting will eventually also negatively affect the dung beetle fauna of forests, even if fragmentation does not.
The study is published in the June issue of Tropical Conservation Science, an open-access online journal.
Kevina Vulinec, Albertina Pimentel Lima, Elildo A. R. Carvalho-Jr. and David J. Mellow (2008). Dung beetles and long-term habitat fragmentation in Alter do Chão, Amazônia, Brazil. Tropical Conservation Science Vol.1(2):111-121, 2008.
