BACKGROUND Traditional agro-pastoral practices are in decline over much of the Alps (MacDonald et al. 2000), leading to shrub and tree encroachment, and this represents one of the main threats for the conservation of alpine biodiversity, as many plant and animal species are dependent on the presence of semi-natural open habitats. However, quantifying this environmental change and assessing its ...

The coexistence of ecologically similar species (i.e. species utilizing the same resource) is a major topic in ecology. Communities are assembled either through the biotic interactions of ecologically similar species, e.g. competition, or by the abiotic separation of species along gradients of environmental conditions. Here, we investigated the temporal segregation, succession and seasonality o...

Forests in Southeast Asia are rapidly being logged and converted to oil palm. These changes in land-use are known to affect species diversity but consequences for the functional diversity of species assemblages are poorly understood. Environmental filtering of species with similar traits could lead to disproportionate reductions in trait diversity in degraded habitats. Here, we focus on dung be...

Agricultural expansion and intensification are major threats to global biodiversity, ecological functions, and ecosystem services. The rapid expansion of oil palm in forested tropical landscapes is of particular concern given their high biodiversity. Identifying management approaches that maintain native species and associated ecological processes within oil palm plantations is therefore a prio...

The study presents taxonomic account of 52 species of dung beetles belonging to 22 genera, 12 tribes, 04 subtribes, 05 subfamilies and 03 families viz. Scarabaeidae, Geotrupidae and Hybosoridae from Chhattisgarh. Interactive identification keys to the subfamilies, tribes, genera and species were prepared by studying thoroughly the morphological characters of all the dung beetles specimens colle...

—Species diversity and abundance of scarabaeoid dung beetles (Coleoptera) attracted to fresh cow dung were studied in three habitats of New Jersey: Hutcheson Memorial Forest (HMF) disturbed field, HMF old growth forest, and Rutgers University Bovine Farm. Over a one year period, baited pitfall traps yielded a total of 15,206 beetles representing at least 26 species. Onthophagus hecate was a dom...

In order to protect their food from competitors, ball-rolling dung beetles detach a piece of dung from a pile, shape it into a ball, and roll it away along a straight path [1]. They appear to rely exclusively on celestial compass cues to maintain their bearing [2-8], but the mechanism that enables them to use these cues for orientation remains unknown. Here, we describe the orientation strategy...

Although there is increasing interest in the effects of habitat disturbance on community attributes and the potential consequences for ecosystem functioning, objective approaches linking biodiversity loss to functional loss are uncommon. The objectives of this study were to implement simultaneous assessment of community attributes (richness, abundance and biomass, each calculated for total-beet...

Data on dry biomass and body length are given for 47 species of dung beetles from the southern part Russian Far East. The length-to-body weight relation in specimens dung-beetles was calculated, to enable be estimated information about length. Shown, selection optimal models length-weight relationship depends types trophodynamic relationships its size classes. When conducting ecological studies...

The main food source of free-living nematodes in the soil environment is bacteria, which can affect nematode development, fecundity and survival. In order to occupy a reliable source of bacterial food, some nematodes have formed specific relationships with an array of invertebrate hosts (where bacteria proliferate once the hosts dies), thus forming a tritrophic system of nematode, bacteria and ...