Spatial patterns of movement of dung beetle species in a tropical forest suggest a new trap spacing for dung beetle biodiversity studies.

Abstract

A primary goal of community ecologists is to understand the processes underlying the spatiotemporal patterns of species distribution. Understanding the dispersal process is of great interest in ecology because it is related to several mechanisms driving community structure. We investigated the mobility of dung beetles using mark-release-recapture technique, and tested the usefulness of the current recommendation for interaction distance between baited pitfall traps in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. We found differences in mean movement rate between Scarabaeinae species, and between species with different sets of ecological traits. Large-diurnal-tunneler species showed greater mobility than did both large-nocturnal tunneler and roller species. Our results suggest that, based on the analyses of the whole community or the species with the highest number of recaptured individuals, the minimum distance of 50 m between pairs of baited pitfall traps proposed roughly 10 years ago is inadequate. Dung beetle species with different sets of ecological traits may differ in their dispersal ability, so we suggest a new minimum distance of 100 m between pairs of traps to minimize interference between baited pitfall traps for sampling copronecrophagous Scarabaeinae dung beetles.