Bait attractiveness changes community metrics in dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae).

Species relative abundance (SRA) is an essential attribute of biotic communities, which can provide an accurate description of community structure. However, the sampling method used may have a direct influence on SRA quantification, since the use of attractants (e.g.

Linking land-use and land-cover transitions to their ecological impact in the Amazon.

Human activities pose a major threat to tropical forest biodiversity and ecosystem services. Although the impacts of deforestation are well studied, multiple land-use and land-cover transitions (LULCTs) occur in tropical landscapes, and we do not know how LULCTs differ in their rates or impacts on key ecosystem components. Here, we quantified the impacts of 18 LULCTs on three ecosystem components (biodiversity, carbon, and soil), based on 18 variables collected from 310 sites in the Brazilian Amazon.

Temperature and productivity distinctly affect the species richness of ectothermic and endothermic multitrophic guilds along a tropical elevational gradient.

The diversity of endotherms and ectotherms may be differently affected by ambient temperature and net primary productivity (NPP). Additionally, little is known about how these drivers affect the diversity of guilds of different trophic levels. We assessed the relative role of temperature and NPP in multitrophic guilds of ectothermic (arthropods: ants, ground beetles, spiders, and harvestmen) and endothermic (large mammals) animals along a tropical elevational gradient.

Integrated terrestrial-freshwater planning doubles conservation of tropical aquatic species.

Conservation initiatives overwhelmingly focus on terrestrial biodiversity, and little is known about the freshwater cobenefits of terrestrial conservation actions. We sampled more than 1500 terrestrial and freshwater species in the Amazon and simulated conservation for species from both realms. Prioritizations based on terrestrial species yielded on average just 22% of the freshwater benefits achieved through freshwater-focused conservation.

Climatic and local stressor interactions threaten tropical forests and coral reefs.

Tropical forests and coral reefs host a disproportionately large share of global biodiversity and provide ecosystem functions and services used by millions of people. Yet, ongoing climate change is leading to an increase in frequency and magnitude of extreme climatic events in the tropics, which, in combination with other local human disturbances, is leading to unprecedented negative ecological consequences for tropical forests and coral reefs. Here, we provide an overview of how and where climate extremes are affecting the most biodiverse ecosystems on Earth and summarize how interactions between global, regional and local stressors are affecting tropical forest and coral reef systems through impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem resilience.

The Rolling of Food by Dung Beetles Affects the Oviposition of Competing Flies.

Flies are the main competitors of dung beetles for oviposition sites and rolling dung beetles relocate their food to reduce interspecific competition. Furthermore, dung beetles deposit chemical substances on the food ball that may repel fly larvae and certain predators. In the present study, using , a dung beetle that does not exhibit parental care and the blow-fly, , we tested the hypothesis that pygidial secretions deposited on the food ball could also make it less attractive as an oviposition site for flies.

Drivers of community assembly in tropical forest restoration sites: role of local environment, landscape, and space.

There is increasing recognition that community assembly theory can offer valuable insights for ecological restoration. We studied community assembly processes following tropical forest restoration efforts, using dung beetles (Scarabaeinae) as a focal taxon to investigate taxonomic and functional patterns of biodiversity recovery. We evaluated the relative importance of the local environment (i.

Variegated tropical landscapes conserve diverse dung beetle communities.

Background: Conserving biodiversity in tropical landscapes is a major challenge to scientists and conservationists. Current rates of deforestation, fragmentation, and land use intensification are producing variegated landscapes with undetermined values for the conservation of biological communities and ecosystem functioning. Here, we investigate the importance of tropical variegated landscapes to biodiversity conservation, using dung beetle as focal taxa.

Does selective logging stress tropical forest invertebrates? Using fat stores to examine sublethal responses in dung beetles.

The increased global demand for tropical timber has driven vast expanses of tropical forests to be selectively logged worldwide. While logging impacts on wildlife are predicted to change species distribution and abundance, the underlying physiological responses are poorly understood. Although there is a growing consensus that selective logging impacts on natural populations start with individual stress-induced sublethal responses, this literature is dominated by investigations conducted with vertebrates from temperate zones.

The value of trophic interactions for ecosystem function: dung beetle communities influence seed burial and seedling recruitment in tropical forests.

Anthropogenic activities are causing species extinctions, raising concerns about the consequences of changing biological communities for ecosystem functioning. To address this, we investigated how dung beetle communities influence seed burial and seedling recruitment in the Brazilian Amazon. First, we conducted a burial and retrieval experiment using seed mimics.

Anthropogenic disturbance in tropical forests can double biodiversity loss from deforestation.

Concerted political attention has focused on reducing deforestation, and this remains the cornerstone of most biodiversity conservation strategies. However, maintaining forest cover may not reduce anthropogenic forest disturbances, which are rarely considered in conservation programmes. These disturbances occur both within forests, including selective logging and wildfires, and at the landscape level, through edge, area and isolation effects.

Assessing the Importance of Intraspecific Variability in Dung Beetle Functional Traits.

Functional diversity indices are used to facilitate a mechanistic understanding of many theoretical and applied questions in current ecological research. The use of mean trait values in functional indices assumes that traits are robust, in that greater variability exists between than within species. While the assertion of robust traits has been explored in plants, there exists little information on the source and extent of variability in the functional traits of higher trophic level organisms.

How pervasive is biotic homogenization in human-modified tropical forest landscapes?

Land-cover change and ecosystem degradation may lead to biotic homogenization, yet our understanding of this phenomenon over large spatial scales and different biotic groups remains weak. We used a multi-taxa dataset from 335 sites and 36 heterogeneous landscapes in the Brazilian Amazon to examine the potential for landscape-scale processes to modulate the cumulative effects of local disturbances. Biotic homogenization was high in production areas but much less in disturbed and regenerating forests, where high levels of among-site and among-landscape β-diversity appeared to attenuate species loss at larger scales.

A revision of the Deltochilum subgenus Aganhyboma Kolbe, 1893 (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae).

The species of the Deltochilum subgenus Aganhyboma, endemic to Central and South America, are reviewed. The species have been divided into complexes, with a brief diagnosis presented for each. A key for identification of 26 currently recognized species is provided in English and Portuguese.

Human-induced trophic cascades along the fecal detritus pathway.

Human presence and activity in tropical forest is thought to exert top-down regulation over the various 'green-world' pathways of plant-based foodwebs. However, these effects have never been explored for the 'brown-world' pathways of fecal-detritus webs. The strong effects of humans on tropical game mammals are likely to indirectly influence fecal detritivores (including Scarabaeine dung beetles), with subsequent indirect impacts on detrivore-mediated and plant-facilitating detrital processes.

Optimising bait for pitfall trapping of Amazonian dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeinae).

The accurate sampling of communities is vital to any investigation of ecological processes and biodiversity. Dung beetles have emerged as a widely used focal taxon in environmental studies and can be sampled quickly and inexpensively using baited pitfalls. Although there is now a wealth of available data on dung beetle communities from around the world, there is a lack of standardisation between sampling protocols for accurately sampling dung beetle communities.

Using dung beetles to evaluate the effects of urbanization on Atlantic Forest biodiversity.

We used dung beetles to evaluate the impact of urbanization on insect biodiversity in three Atlantic Forest fragments in Londrina, Paraná, Brazil. This study provides the first empirical evidence of the impact of urbanization on richness, abundance, composition and guild structure of dung beetle communities from the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. We evaluated the community aspects (abundance, richness, composition and food guilds) of dung beetles in fragments with different degrees of immersion in the urban matrix using pitfall traps with four alternative baits (rotten meat, rotten fish, pig dung and decaying banana).

A social and ecological assessment of tropical land uses at multiple scales: the Sustainable Amazon Network.

Science has a critical role to play in guiding more sustainable development trajectories. Here, we present the Sustainable Amazon Network (Rede Amazônia Sustentável, RAS): a multidisciplinary research initiative involving more than 30 partner organizations working to assess both social and ecological dimensions of land-use sustainability in eastern Brazilian Amazonia. The research approach adopted by RAS offers three advantages for addressing land-use sustainability problems: (i) the collection of synchronized and co-located ecological and socioeconomic data across broad gradients of past and present human use; (ii) a nested sampling design to aid comparison of ecological and socioeconomic conditions associated with different land uses across local, landscape and regional scales; and (iii) a strong engagement with a wide variety of actors and non-research institutions.

Trait-dependent response of dung beetle populations to tropical forest conversion at local and regional scales.

Comparative analyses that link information on species' traits, environmental change, and organism response have rarely identified unambiguous trait correlates of vulnerability. We tested if species' traits could predict local-scale changes in dung beetle population response to three levels of forest conversion intensity within and across two biogeographic regions (the Neotropics and Afro-Eurasian tropics). We combined biodiversity surveys, a global molecular phylogeny, and information on three species' traits hypothesized to influence vulnerability to forest conversion to examine (1) the consistency of beetle population response across regions, (2) if species' traits could predict this response, and (3) the cross-regional consistency of trait-response relationships.

Dung beetle community and functions along a habitat-disturbance gradient in the Amazon: a rapid assessment of ecological functions associated to biodiversity.

Although there is increasing interest in the effects of habitat disturbance on community attributes and the potential consequences for ecosystem functioning, objective approaches linking biodiversity loss to functional loss are uncommon. The objectives of this study were to implement simultaneous assessment of community attributes (richness, abundance and biomass, each calculated for total-beetle assemblages as well as small- and large-beetle assemblages) and three ecological functions of dung beetles (dung removal, soil perturbation and secondary seed dispersal), to compare the effects of habitat disturbance on both sets of response variables, and their relations. We studied dung beetle community attributes and functions in five land-use systems representing a disturbance gradient in the Brazilian Amazon: primary forest, secondary forest, agroforestry, agriculture and pasture.

Wildfires in bamboo-dominated Amazonian forest: impacts on above-ground biomass and biodiversity.

Fire has become an increasingly important disturbance event in south-western Amazonia. We conducted the first assessment of the ecological impacts of these wildfires in 2008, sampling forest structure and biodiversity along twelve 500 m transects in the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve, Acre, Brazil. Six transects were placed in unburned forests and six were in forests that burned during a series of forest fires that occurred from August to October 2005.

Quantifying responses of dung beetles to fire disturbance in tropical forests: the importance of trapping method and seasonality.

Understanding how biodiversity responds to environmental changes is essential to provide the evidence-base that underpins conservation initiatives. The present study provides a standardized comparison between unbaited flight intercept traps (FIT) and baited pitfall traps (BPT) for sampling dung beetles. We examine the effectiveness of the two to assess fire disturbance effects and how trap performance is affected by seasonality.

A small mammal community in a forest fragment, vegetation corridor and coffee matrix system in the Brazilian Atlantic forest.

The objective of our work was to verify the value of the vegetation corridor in the conservation of small mammals in fragmented tropical landscapes, using a model system in the southeastern Minas Gerais. We evaluated and compared the composition and structure of small mammals in a vegetation corridor, forest fragments and a coffee matrix. A total of 15 species were recorded, and the highest species richness was observed in the vegetation corridor (13 species), followed by the forest fragments (10) and the coffee matrix (6).

[Rapid evaluation of ant diversity in land use systems in southern Bahia, Brazil].

We aimed to compare the soil ant diversity in different land use systems from Atlantic Forest area, in Southern Bahia state, Brazil. The ants were sampled in 16 sites: two primary forest sites (un-logged forest); three young secondary forests (<8 years old); three intermediate secondary forests (8-20 years old); three old secondary forests (>20 years old); three Eucalyptus grandis plantations (3-7 years old), and two introduced pastures. Each site was sampled in three sampling points 15 m apart, and distant over 50 m from the site edge.