Insect populations are declining worldwide, raising concerns about the loss of biodiversity and essential ecosystem services that insects provide. Yet, despite their ecological importance, some insect groups remain overlooked. Among them are dung beetles, a critically important insect group that provides several important services such as nutrient cycling , soil aeration and seed dispersal. Graphical abstract. Source: Cavallaro et al. (2026) In this Forum article published in

Hello everyone! I am Nethmi, a PhD student at the Tropical Ecology and Entomology (TEE) Lab, Asian School of the Environment, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. My research focuses on understanding the diversity, distribution, and ecology of dung beetles in Sri Lanka, particularly how their communities respond to differences in climate and habitat conditions. From July to mid-September 2026, I embarked on my first field season, exploring dung beetle communitie

How do we know whether a tropical forest is truly functioning? Is monitoring biodiversity and forest cover enough, or should we also be measuring the ecological processes that keep forests alive? These were among the important questions explored at the SCIENCE+ Meeting, “Safeguarding Anthropocene Tropical Forests,” held on 5–6 October 2026 at the Royal Society, London, UK. Our lab member, Dr Li Yuen, had the opportunity to present her research and contribute to discussions al

Through our Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) project, Mobilising Data on Ecologically Important Insects in Malaysia and Singapore, we brought together information on dung beetles (Scarabaeinae) from scientific literature, museum collections and data collected from the field. Focusing on dung beetles in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, our work has resulted in an open-access sampling event and occurrence dataset containing more than 27,000 records, alongside a taxonomic

On 1 and 3 October 2026, TEE Lab's Associate Professor Eleanor Slade and Dr Ong Xin Rui visited renowned Southeast Asian taxonomists Dr Teruo Ochi and Dr Masahiro Kon in Osaka, Japan. We had productive discussions in Dr Ochi's home and were fascinated by his extensive and incredible private collection of dung beetles and other insect groups. Group photo with Dr Ochi and Dr Kon, with Eleanor holding a putative new species to science! Photo 2026 Xin Rui. Dr Ochi showing us his