Dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeoidea) in three landscapes in Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil

Abstract

Dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeoidea) in three landscapes in Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil. Dung Beetles are important for biological control of intestinal worms and dipterans of economic importance to cattle, because they feed and breed in dung, killing parasites inside it. They are also very useful as bioindicators of species diversity in agricultural or natural environments. The aims of this paper were to study the species richness, and abundance of dung beetles, helping to answer the question: are there differences in the patterns of dung beetle diversity in three environments (pasture, agriculture and forest) in the municipality of Dourados, in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. A total of 105 samplings were carried out weekly, from November 2005 to November 2007, using three pitfall traps in each environment. The traps were baited with fresh bovine dung, and 44,355 adult dung beetles from 54 species were captured: two from Hyborosidae and 52 from Scarabaeidae. Five species were constant, very abundant and dominant on the pasture, two in the agricultural environment, and two in the environment of Semideciduous forest. Most of the species were characterised as accessories, common and not-dominant. The species with higher abundance was Ataenius platensis Blanchard, 1844. The indexes of Shannon-Wiener diversity were: 2.90 in the pasture, 2.84 in the agricultural environment and 2.66 in the area of native forest. The medium positive presence of dung beetles in the traps in each environment were: 36.88, 42.73 and 20.18 individuals per trap, in the pasture, agricultural environment and in the native forest, respectively. The pasture environment presented a higher diversity index. The species diversity of dung beetles was superior where there was higher abundance and regularity of resource (bovine dung).Keywords: biodiversity, Coleoptera, Hybosoridae, Scarabaeidae, population ecology. Besouros coprófagos (Coleoptera: Scarabaeoidea) em três paisagens de Mato Grosso do Sul, Brasil ResumoColeópteros coprófagos são importantes (especialmente Scarabaeidae) para controle biológico de vermes gastrointestinais e de dípteros; dessa forma, são de importância econômica para a pecuária, pois esses besouros utilizam excrementos como alimento e sítio para reprodução. Eles são também de grande utilidade como bioindicadores da diversidade. O objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar a riqueza em espécies e a abundância de besouros coprófagos, além de verificar se estes atributos são diferentes nos três ambientes (pastagem, agricultura e mata), no município de Dourados-MS. Palavras-chave: biodiversidade, Coleoptera, Hybosoridae, Scarabaeidae, ecologia populacional.

Dung beetle (Coleoptera: Scarabaeinae) persistence in Amazonian forest fragments and adjacent pastures: biogeographic implications for alpha and beta diversity

“…However, pastures created in open vegetation areas such as Cerrado have less loss of dung beetle diversity than pastures surrounded by forests (Almeida-Neto and Ulrich 2011; Rodrigues et al 2013). This indicates that the responses of dung beetles to replacement of native forest by pasture are related to the geographical distribution of these species (Davis et al 2000) and biogeographical context of the study area (Horgan 2007;Rös et al 2012).…”

“…Pastures surrounded by open vegetation such as Cerrado, Caatinga and Chaco have lower loss of species than pastures in forest landscapes (Vieira et al 2008;Almeida-Neto and Ulrich 2011;Rodrigues et al 2013;Scheffler 2005;Braga et al 2013;Korasaki et al 2013;Silva et al 2014). This is due to the fact that species of open areas are able to use pastures as habitat and cattle dung as a resource (Horgan 2007), because of past contact with dung of prairie mammal herbivores (Favila 2012).…”

Forest habitat parameters influence abundance and diversity of cadaver-visiting dung beetles in Central Europe

“…As a globally distributed insect group, dung beetles provide several key ecosystem functions, such as secondary seed dispersal, nutrient cycling and parasite suppression [23]. Additionally, dung beetles are particularly sensitive to anthropogenic disturbances of natural habitats and can be used as biological indicators in monitoring programmes [24][25][26][27]. Especially in the tropics, forest dung beetle species are usually unable to tolerate open environments and do not persist after the native forest is replaced by crops and/or cattle systems [28,29].…”

The beetle Costalimaita ferruginea (Coleoptera: Chysomelidae) in Eucalyptus plantations in transition area of Amazon and Cerrado Biomes

“…Little is known about C. ferruginea behavior, especially as the scenery changes, but, like other beetles, this is sensitive to environmental changes, in a special way in biomes transition areas (Andresen, 2001;Rodrigues et al, 2013).…”