Dung Beetle Traits Can be Shaped by Human-Induced Temperature Changes

Our new paper, led by Joe Williamson, and including data collected by ex-TEE Lab undergraduate Enoch Teh during his research project, has been published in Functional Ecology. The paper investigates how the physiological and morphological traits of dung beetles can be shaped by temperature changes induced by human disturbance across an forest-oil palm mosaic landscape in Borneo.

LiDAR-derived projections of mean daily maximum temperature (Tmax) with dung beetle community sampling points.

Joe and Enoch collected data on traits linked to thermal sensitivity (critical thermal maxima, body size, cuticle lightness and pilosity (hariness)) for 46 dung beetle species. This was then combined with abundance and distribution data from a arge-scale trapping campaign and a LiDAR derived thermal map to determine how traits mediate dung beetle species- and community-level responses to temperature.

We found that a species critical thermal maxima (or CTmax) was the most important trait predicting how species respond to increasing temperatures, with those species with higher a CTmax being most able to survive the hotter conditions of degraded habitats. Beetles that could survive hotter temperatures also tended to be larger and were less hairy.

Understanding how animals respond to temperature changes allows insights into the mechanisms that drive species declines in response to climate and habitat change and is important if we are to predict how invertebrates will respond to future climate change.

Dr Joe Williamson collecting beetles with a dung-baited trap

You can read the full paper here: https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2435.14062