Establishment of exotic dung beetles in Queensland: the role of habitat specificity

Doube, Β. M.; Macqueen, A.

doi:10.1007/bf02377939

Cited by 17 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Many Aphodius dung beetle species utilise a specific stage of dung pat succession (Mohr, 1943; Koskela & Hanski, 1977; Hanski, 1980; Holter, 1982; Gittings & Giller, 1997). They are also known to show differences in habitat selection, vegetation cover being one of the most important discriminants (Mohr, 1943; Hanski & Koskela, 1977; Lumaret, 1983; Doube & Macqueen, 1991; Davis, 1996; Menéndez & Gutiérrez, 1996; Barbero et al . 1999).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Habitat and weather affect reproduction and size of the dung beetle Aphodius fossor

Vessby

2001

Ecological Entomology

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Summary 1. The influence of sun exposure and moisture on reproduction and size of a north temperate dung beetle Aphodius fossor was investigated. Adult beetles were added to cow pats that were either shaded or exposed and treated with different watering regimes. 2. After 26 days, more eggs and larvae were recovered from shaded and wetter pats than from exposed and drier pats. 3. At the end of the experiment, more beetles had developed in shaded and wetter pats, and these beetles were larger than those from exposed and drier pats. 4. There was no between‐treatment difference in the ratio between adults in final sampling and larvae in first sampling. 5. It was concluded that exposure and moisture can influence both reproduction and size of A. fossor. It is suggested that weather may be a factor regulating reproduction in Aphodius not only through heat‐ or drought‐induced mortality, as suggested earlier, but also by limiting the time available for egg laying. Further studies are needed to clarify this suggestion.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Habitat and weather affect reproduction and size of the dung beetle Aphodius fossor

Vessby

2001

Ecological Entomology

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“…Previous studies have documented the dung or habitat preferences of Australian dung beetles in particular bioregions (e.g. Doube and Macqueen 1991;Hill 1993Hill , 1996Wright 1997;Vernes et al 2005;Ebert et al 2019;Carvalho et al 2020). Some experimental research into interspecific competition between dung beetles has been done in other countries (e.g.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A comparison of ecomorphology between introduced and native Australian dung beetles

Harvey

Sherratt

2023

Aust. J. Zool.

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Among the many catastrophic introductions of exotic species to Australia, the Australian Dung Beetle Project stands apart as a success story. From 1965 dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeinae) were introduced for biological control purposes, and 23 species survived to become integrated into the environment with apparently little-to-no competition with native species. To understand this, we investigated ecomorphological diversity in the Australian dung beetle fauna, examining variation in functional traits among rolling and tunnelling species that are native to Australia and introduced. We found that introduced species are, on average, larger than native species of the same nidification strategy, but the size ranges overlap. Native and introduced tunnellers are convergent in body shape, whereas introduced rollers have distinct body shape compared with native species. Rollers and tunnellers also have distinct allometric patterns, where shape variation predicted by size aligns along two diverging allometric trajectories between nidification strategies. Our results suggest that ecomorphological differences do not explain the apparent lack of competition between tunnellers, but this may be the factor for rollers. Also, these results indicate that body size and associated allometric scaling is an important aspect of the ecomorphology of dung beetles that should be considered in future studies.

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“…Many authors observed considerable differences regarding preferences for open fields and woodland in different climatic zones in coprophagous beetles (Landin, 1961;Lumaret & Kirk, 1987;Baz, 1988;Doube & MacQueen, 1991) and postulated temperature- (Koskela, 1972) or light intensity-dependent (Doube, 1983) mechanisms for macrohabitat selection. Habitats 1 and 2 in this study, however, differed only slightly which explained the low importance of the habitat type in niche separation in this community.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Niche separation in coprophagous beetles: a comparison of two multivariate approaches

Sowig

1997

Bull. Entomol. Res.

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Coprophagous beetles (endocoprid and paracoprid Scarabaeidae, Hydrophilidae, and Staphylinidae) were extracted from 698 sheep droppings from a pasture in southwest Germany. To quantify the pairwise niche overlap of these species, pairwise discriminant function analysis was used to calculate the overlap of the discriminant distributions in a four-dimensional niche space. Niche separation was studied considering the following four factors: season (month) and macrohabitat when and where the dropping was deposited, dropping size, and water content of the dropping. Multiple discriminant function analysis was used to describe the distribution of species in a space defined by four discriminant functions. The first discriminant function was mostly influenced by the factor ‘season’. The importance of different factors for niche separation in different functional groupings of dung beetles is compared with results from the literature. Advantages and disadvantages of pairwise and multiple discriminant function analysis, and univariate evaluation methods are compared. The following problems and restrictions of discriminant function analyses are emphasized: (i) the usage of non-numerical variables; (ii) the calculation of niche breadths; (iii) failures, when bimodally distributed variables are considered; and (iv) the ecological interpretation of statistical significances.

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Establishment of exotic dung beetles in Queensland: the role of habitat specificity

Cited by 17 publications

References 9 publications

Habitat and weather affect reproduction and size of the dung beetle Aphodius fossor

Habitat and weather affect reproduction and size of the dung beetle Aphodius fossor

A comparison of ecomorphology between introduced and native Australian dung beetles

Niche separation in coprophagous beetles: a comparison of two multivariate approaches

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