Dung beetle trophic ecology: are we misunderstanding resources attraction?

GIMÉNEZ GÓMEZ VICTORIA C; VERDÚ, JOSÉ R.; VELAZCO, SANTIAGO JE; ZURITA, GUSTAVO A.

Ecological Entomology

Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Lugar: Chennai; Año: 2020

1. Trophic ecology of dung beetles has been widely studied because of theimportant ecological role of these taxa. However, previous studies have focused on alimited number of potential food items (mainly vertebrate dung and carrion) and haveused only one approach (either field or laboratory).Moreover, recent studies showed highabundance of dung beetles in defaunated areas with a low abundance of these resources.2. In this study, we combined a field and laboratory approach to explore dung beetletrophic attraction to different potential native resources in the Atlantic forest; and weevaluated whether results can explain the high abundance of dung beetles in defaunatedareas. Through laboratory olfactometry experiments, we first exposed individuals tovertebrate carrion, omnivorous dung, and decomposing fungi. Then, we exposed speciesthat exhibited a preference for dung to monkey, tapir, and feline dung; and those thatpreferred carrion and decomposing fungi to chicken, cow meat, and arthropod carcasses.We compared trophic attractions in the field and laboratory conditions with generalisedadditive models.3. We found that coprophagous species preferred monkey dung, and all necrophagousand sapro-necrophagous species preferred arthropod carcasses. These results suggestthat the importance of arthropods carcasses as an important resource for dung beetleshas been largely underestimated.4. The results of this study might provide an explanation for the high abundance ofnecrophagous and sapro-necrophagous dung beetles in defaunated areas. In addition, theuse of omnivorous dung and arthropod carcasses could be an effective sampling methodfor dung beetle assemblages.