Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T16:33:17.371Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Trait responses of Peninsular Malaysian dung beetles (Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae) to the loss of megafauna dung

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 October 2019

Thary Gazi Goh  and
Rosli Hashim
Thary Gazi Goh*
Affiliation:
Institute of Biological Sciences, Science Faculty, University of Malaya, 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Rosli Hashim
Affiliation:
Institute of Biological Sciences, Science Faculty, University of Malaya, 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
*
*Author for correspondence: Thary Gazi Goh, Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The extinction of megafauna may lead to the trophic collapse of ecosystems that depend on the dung that they produce. Some dung beetle species may undergo phenotypic changes in response to altered resource availability. The pronotal width of dung beetles is a trait that can be used as a proxy measure for the amount of dung provisioned during the larval stage. In this study conducted in Peninsular Malaysia, we compare the intraspecific difference in pronotal widths of dung beetles in forests with and without megafauna. Beetles were collected using burrowing interception traps baited with elephant dung. Six species with a minimum sample size of 55 beetles per species were used. Pronotum widths were compared using Bayesian estimation (BEST). There was no credible difference between intraspecific pronotal widths of four species, but credible differences between the mean parameters of two species, Liatongus femoratus and Oniticellus tessellatus. Both these species belong to genera that have a close association with megafauna, while the other are believed to be generalists. This may indicate that species that depend on megafauna dung as a breeding resource undergo a phenotypic change following the loss of their preferred dung type. Phenotypic changes appear to be a pathway which allows species to survive the initial trophic collapse of an ecosystem.

Keywords

Adaptationdisturbanceintraspecific variationmegafaunatrophic collapse
Type
Short Communication
Information
Journal of Tropical Ecology , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , January 2020 , pp. 39 - 41
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Literature cited

Arrow, GJ (1931) Coleoptera Lamellicornia Part III. (Coprinae). In Stephenson, J (ed.), The Fauna of British India, Including Ceylon and Burma. London: Taylor and Francis.Google Scholar
Balthasar, V (1963) Monographie der Scarabaeidae und Aphodiidae der palaearktischen und orientalischen Region: Coleoptera: Lamellicornia. Prague: Verlag der Tschechoslowakischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 3 vols. (in German).Google Scholar
Clements, GR (2013) The environmental and social impacts of roads in Southeast Asia. Doctoral dissertation, James Cook University.Google Scholar
Doll, HM, Butod, E, Harrison, RD, Fletcher, C, Kassim, AR, Ibrahim, S and Potts, MD (2014) Environmental and geographic factors driving dung beetle (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae) diversity in the Dipterocarp forests of Peninsular Malaysia. Raffles Bulletin of Zoology 62, 549–560.Google Scholar
Emlen, DJ (1994) Environmental control of horn length dimorphism in the beetle Onthophagus acuminatus (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae). Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 256, 131–136.Google Scholar
Frank, K, Krell, F-T, Slade, EM, Raine, EH, Chiew, LY, Schmitt, T, Vairappan, CS, Walter, P and Blüthgen, N (2018) Global dung webs: high trophic generalism of dung beetles along the latitudinal diversity gradient. Ecology Letters 21, 1229–1236.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goh, TG and Hashim, R (2018) A comparison of the dung beetle (Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae) collecting performance of pitfall traps and burrowing interception traps. The Coleopterists Bulletin 72, 195–202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanboonsong, Y, Chunram, S, Pimpasalee, S, Emberson, RW and Masumoto, K (1999) The dung beetle fauna (Coleoptera, Scarabaeidae) of Northeast Thailand. Elytra 27, 463–469.Google Scholar
Hanski, I and Cambefort, Y (eds) (1991) Dung Beetle Ecology. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kruschke, JK (2013) Bayesian Estimation Supersedes the t-Test. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 142, 573–603.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kruschke, JK and Meredith, M (2018) BEST: Bayesian Estimation Supersedes the t-Test. R package ver. 0.5.1. 2018. https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/BEST.Google Scholar
Moczek, AP (1998) Horn polyphenism in the beetle Onthophagus taurus: larval diet quality and plasticity in parental investment determine adult body size and male horn morphology. Behavioral Ecology 9, 636–641.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moczek, AP (2003) The behavioral ecology of threshold evolution in a polyphenic beetle. Behavioral Ecology 14, 841–854.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nichols, E, Gardner, TA, Peres, CA and Spector, S (2009) Co-declining mammals and dung beetles: an impending ecological cascade. Oikos 118, 481–487.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saaban, S, Othman, NB, Yasak, MNB, Burhanuddin, MN and Zafir, A (2011) Current status of Asian elephants in Peninsular Malaysia. Gajah 35, 67–75.Google Scholar
Violle, C, Navas, ML, Vile, D, Kazakou, E, Fortunel, C and Hummel, I (2007) Let the concept of trait be functional! Oikos 116, 882–892.CrossRefGoogle Scholar