Abstract
Dung beetle activity in the soil is essential for soil health and play a vital role in any ecosystem. Diversity within a dung beetle assemblage in a particular ecosystem can indicate the sustainable functioning of this system. Monitoring the dung beetle assemblage in an area can designate the ecological status of an area. Using dung beetles can therefore indicate whether the conservation agriculture systems are beneficial for soil health and as a result will improve the overall biodiversity in the system. In the case of crop ecosystems, the presence of a diverse dung beetle assemblage can increase soil health in this system resulting in yield increase of the crop. Dung beetle diversity was determined on Free State farms in agro-ecosystems across different cultivation practices. The study areas were the Vrede and Reitz areas in the North-Eastern Free State. Conservation agriculture (CA) systems were compared with Conventional agriculture (CT) systems in these areas. Seasonal (October, January, May, July) monitoring of dung beetle diversity for the period 2018-2020 was done in crop ecosystems by using dung baited pitfall traps.
Highlights
Human food production systems have a detrimental impact on the environment that we rely on for food, with global ecosystems in danger of collapsing
Seasonal (October, January, May, July) monitoring of dung beetle assemblages were done for the period from 2018 to 2020 in crop ecosystems by using pitfall traps baited with pig dung
A dung beetle assemblage can be divided into seven functional groups (FG I-FGVII) based on the size, dung removal and speed of dung removal by a particular species (Table 1) [17]
Summary
Human food production systems have a detrimental impact on the environment that we rely on for food, with global ecosystems in danger of collapsing. With the disappearance of these organisms, our future survival will be threatened since we rely on them for food production and a stable climate. Semi-arid cereal systems are globally faced with challenges to safeguard cropping system flexibility and productivity in changing water and temperature circumstances, while at the same time reversing soil degradation and protecting crops against pests, pathogens and weeds [3]. South Africa is a semi-arid, water-scarce country with a high degree of natural variability in its weather systems and extreme events like droughts and flooding. The best way to deal with these challenges is to change our food production systems to more sustainable systems
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