Habitat type affects the diversity of dung beetle (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) assemblages in a neotropical mountainous region of Colombia

Abstract

Ecological communities of tropical regions respond to habitat configuration, being negatively affected by anthropogenic habitats. In the tropics, mountainous highland landscapes sustain ecological communities with contrasting responses to habitat transformation. This study assessed the effect of different habitats under different disturbance regimes on the dung beetle assemblage that inhabits a mountainous Andean landscape in Colombia. The habitat types surveyed were oak forest cores (low intervention), forest edges (medium intervention), and pastures (high intervention). A total of 3,810 dung beetles from ten species were collected. Dung beetle diversity was affected by habitat type, and forest cores and forest edges had higher diversity than pastures. Besides, each habitat type was characterized by a distinct dung beetle assemblage, with pastures showing the highest heterogeneity in the dung beetle assemblage. In conclusion, our study suggests that the dung beetles of a portion of Colombian Andean landscapes are sensitive to shifts of habitat quality. The higher dung beetle diversity in forested habitats indicates that pastures comprise limiting environments for their assemblages at this Andean region.

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