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(NEW Publication) Effects of land use change ON Dung Removal & DB Taxonomic & Functional diversity

  • Writer: Xin Rui Ong
    Xin Rui Ong
  • Jun 21, 2023
  • 2 min read

Land use change, particularly the conversion of natural landscapes to agricultural areas, is a major contributor to biodiversity loss in tropical regions. In this recent study published in Insect Conservation and Diversity, the authors investigated the effect of tropical savanna conversion to exotic pastures on the taxonomic and functional diversity of dung beetle assemblages and dung removal rates. This study, titled "Tropical savanna conversion to exotic pastures negatively affects taxonomic and functional diversity of dung beetle assemblages, but not dung removal", was performed in the Brazilian Cerrado biome, which is the largest and most biodiversity-rich savanna, and has high rates of endemism.


(L) Location of study sites (Maciel et al. 2023). (Top R) Example of a Cerrado (Source: Wikimedia Commons).

(Bottom R) Large-bodied Oxysternon palemo that was only found in Cerrado sites (Source: Afonso Carlos, iNaturalist).


Using data collected through dung beetle surveys performed across the Cerrado in 2016, the authors calculated the species richness, abundance, total biomass, and species composition as assemblage metrics, and functional richness, equitability and dispersion indices, and functional composition as functional diversity metrics. Dung removal rates were determined using experimental dung piles that were left for 24 hours and by weighing the amount of remaining dung.


The authors determined that land use change had negatively affected both taxonomic and functional diversity, where larger-bodied species are most affected and disturbance-tolerant species become dominant in exotic pastures. This loss of large-bodied species led to an increased abundance of small-bodied and dweller species in exotic pastures and thus maintained dung removal rates across both habitat types through density-compensation.


These results suggest that "responses of dung beetle assemblages and dung removal to land use changes are decoupled, idiosyncratic and context-dependent, presenting challenges for making predictions and generalisations about the effects of land use change on ecological processes mediated by animals."





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