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1 December 2010 Use of Habitat Resources by Scarab Dung Beetles in an Savanna
Giuseppe Maria Carpaneto, Adriano Mazziotta, Michele Ieradi
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Abstract

In the Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda, we compared the scarab beetle assemblages in the dung of three wild ungulates (African buffalo, a ruminant foregut fermenter; hippopotamus, nonruminant foregut fermenter; and warthog, nonruminant hindgut fermenter). Dung was collected from two sandy-clay soils with different percentage of coarse sand. We aimed at investigating habitat resource selection by dung beetle species within a savanna natural contest with abundant and diverse food availability. Analyses were performed to detect differences for dung beetle assemblages in abundance, diversity, functional groups. Species richness in the three dung types and in the two soil types was similar. However, warthog dung and sandy-rich soil appeared the preferred habitat resources, in terms of abundance and biomass, while hippopotamus dung hosted the lowest values for these parameters. The analysis of functional groups revealed that slow-burying tunnellers held the major role, both in terms of abundance and biomass, and were mainly found in warthog dung.

© 2010 Entomological Society of America
Giuseppe Maria Carpaneto, Adriano Mazziotta, and Michele Ieradi "Use of Habitat Resources by Scarab Dung Beetles in an Savanna," Environmental Entomology 39(6), 1756-1764, (1 December 2010). https://doi.org/10.1603/EN09249
Received: 2 September 2009; Accepted: 1 July 2010; Published: 1 December 2010
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KEYWORDS
community ecology
competition
functional groups
savanna grasslands
soil ecology
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