Ivermectin is a veterinary pharmaceutical generally used to control the ecto- and endoparasites of livestock, but its use has resulted in adverse effects on coprophilous insects, causing population decline and biodiversity loss. There is currently no information regarding the direct effects of ivermectin on dung beetle physiology and behaviour. Here, based on electroantennography and spontaneou...

Grazing extensification and intensification are among the main problems affecting European grasslands. We analyze the impact of grazing intensity (low and moderate) and the use of veterinary medical products (VMPs) on the dung beetle community in the province of Pesaro-Urbino (Italy). Grazing intensity is a key factor in explaining the diversity of dung beetles. In the case of the alpha diversi...

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 curr...

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 beetle...

Species composition, distribution patterns and endemism are outlined for the dung beetles in the ecoregions of the western slopes of the moist South Western Ghats, South India. Among the 142 dung beetle species known, 35 are endemic to the Western Ghats; 29 are endemic to the moist South Western Ghats; 25 are regionally endemic to the South Western Ghats montane rain forests ecoregion; and one ...

Nutrition, via the insulin/insulin-like growth factor (IIS)/Target of Rapamycin (TOR) signaling pathway, can provide a strong molding force for determining animal size and shape. For instance, nutrition induces a disproportionate increase in the size of male horns in dung and rhinoceros beetles, or mandibles in staghorn or horned flour beetles, relative to body size. In these species, well-fed ...

The process of seed dispersal of many animal-dispersed plants is frequently mediated by a small set of biotic agents. However, the contribution that each of these dispersers makes to the overall recruitment may differ largely, with important ecological and management implications for the population viability and dynamics of the species implied in these interactions. In this paper, we compared t...

Pristionchus spp. nematodes exhibit several traits that might serve as pre-adaptations to parasitism. Under harshenvironmental conditions, these nematodes can arrest development and form dauer larvae. In addition, they have been shown to live innecromenic association with a range of beetles, including dung beetles (Geotrupes stercorosus) on which, for example, Pristionchusentomophag...

Semiarid environments are drylands characterized by very little rain and high temperatures. In Mexico, these found in the center north of country. It is common to think that few species could exist hot, dry environments, but semiarid actually contain a great variety life forms. Insects called dung beetles one important example. Dung use manure (poop) excreted mammals as food source make their n...

Understanding of the role of body mass in structural-functional relationships is pressing, particularly because species losses often occur non-randomly with respect to body size. Our study examined the effects of dung beetle body mass on dung removal at two levels. First, we used the lab experiment to evaluate the efficiency of eight dung beetle species belonging to two functional groups (tunne...