Although the frequently large variance in relative male fertilization success when females are mated by more than 1 male has been appreciated for some time, the factors that influence relative paternity are still poorly understood. Recently, experimental evidence that morphology of male genitalia influences fertilization success has been documented in 2 water striders, a dung beetle, and a leaf...

Prominent in the sky, but not visible to humans, is a pattern of polarized skylight formed around both the Sun and the Moon. Dung beetles are, at present, the only animal group known to use the much dimmer polarization pattern formed around the Moon as a compass cue for maintaining travel direction. However, the Moon is not visible every night and the intensity of the celestial polarization pat...

Thorectes lusitanicus, a typically coprophagous species is also actively attracted to oak acorns, consuming, burying them, and conferring ecophysiological and reproductive advantages to both the beetle and the tree. In this study, we explored the possible relation between diet shift and the health status of T. lusitanicus using a generalist entomopathogenic fungus (Metarhizium anisopliae) as a ...

Vertebrate dung and carrion are rich and strongly attractive resources for numerous beetles that are often closely linked to them. The presence and abundance of beetles exploiting such resources are influenced by various ecological factors including climate and forest cover vegetation. We studied selected assemblages of coprophilous and necrophagous beetles in Quebec along a 115-km north-south...

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...

Feces is an abundant, rich source of energy, utilized by a myriad of organisms, not least by members of the order Diptera, i.e., flies. How Drosophila melanogaster reacts to fecal matter remains unclear. Here, we examined oviposition behavior toward a range of fecal samples from mammals native to the putative Southeast African homeland of the fly. We show that D. melanogaster display a strong o...

Following the observation tha t the non-ball-rolling dung beetle Pachylomerus fem oralis (K irby) rolled the flesh-covered seeds from the fruit o f the spineless m onkey orange tree, Strychnos madagascariensis Poiret, an investigation into the chemical a ttrac tan ts o f this fruit was made. U sing headspace gas chrom atography with electroantennographic and flame ioni­ zation detection in para...