New Publication: From Singapore's Forests to Parks- Impacts of Urbanization on Dung Beetle Communities in a Tropical Island City
Southeast Asia is a hyper-diverse and rapidly urbanizing region. However, the impacts of urbanization on the region's insect communities are still greatly understudied. In our recent publication in Biotropica's Special Issue: Urban Ecosystems, Ecology, and Evolution in the Tropics 2026, we investigated the impacts of urbanization on Singapore's dung beetle communities - an ecologically important and ideal bioindicator group.
Here, we deployed flight interception traps and pitfall traps with three different bait types (i.e. human dung, rotten chicken and rotten fruit) in twelves sites across an urbanization gradient. We found a decline in dung beetle richness and diversity, with changes in community composition and high species turnover with increasing urbanization.
In particular, forest-restricted species, such as the large nocturnal tunneller, Catharsius cf. renaudpauliani and Singapore's only rolling species, Paragymnopleurus maurus, were found in less urbanized sites, while disturbance-tolerant species predominated in more urbanized sites.
Through this study, we established a useful baseline for monitoring the future impacts of urbanization and the effectiveness of Singapore's ongoing greening efforts and naturalizing of urban areas. At the same time, our findings highlight the value of Singapore’s existing urban forests and parks in maintaining biodiversity, where these habitats can still provide important refuge and resources for a range of species.
This work is the culmination of two excellent URECA and FYP undergraduate projects by TEE Lab's Leong Yong Xu and Zann Teo, who have both won awards at the Global Undergraduate Awards in 2022 and 2023 for their work. 🎉
This paper is published as open-access at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/btp.70256
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