Abstract
By manipulating faeces during feeding and breeding, dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) fulfil important ecosystem functions in terrestrial ecosystems throughout the world. In a pan-European multi-site experiment (MSE), we estimated the ecosystem functions of dung removal and secondary seed dispersal by differing combinations of dung beetle functional groups. Therefore, we classified dung beetles into five functional groups according to their body size and dung manipulation method: dwellers, large and small tunnelers, and large and small rollers. Furthermore, we set up a dung beetle sampling database containing all sampled dung beetles during the project. By identifying dung beetle specimens to the species level, we obtained a detailed insight into the dung beetle communities at each study location.By establishing experimental plots allowing and inhibiting specific combinations of functional groups in the local dung beetle assemblage from removing dung and seeds, we estimated the role of each group in dung removal and secondary seed dispersal during a 4-week period. We performed all experiments in grazed (semi-)natural grasslands, and used different dung types (cattle, horse, sheep, goat or red deer) to match the herbivore species grazing in close vicinity of each of the study areas. Simultaneously, we sampled dung beetle assemblages by using pitfalls baited with the same dung types as used in the experiments.This data paper documents two datasets collected in the framework of this MSE project. All the experiments took place between 2013 and 2016 at 17 study sites in 10 countries and 11 biogeographic zones. The entire dung beetle sampling dataset was published as a sampling event dataset at GBIF. The dataset includes the sampling results of all 17 study sites, which contain 1,050 sampling events and 4,362 occurrence records of 94 species. The second dataset contains the results of the dung removal and secondary seed dispersal experiments in which we used 11 experimental treatments and the five dung types mentioned above. This experimental results dataset holds all experimental results of the MSE project (11,537 records), and was published in the online data repository Zenodo.
Highlights
The manipulation of faeces during the feeding and nesting process of dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) brings about a series of ecosystem functions directly related to the removal of dung (Nichols et al 2008)
As dung beetles do not feed on seeds but rather bury seeds unintentionally with dung (Nichols et al 2008), secondary seed dispersal can be considered an indirect result of dung beetle behaviour
Dung beetles are rather diverse in terms of dung manipulation and nesting strategies, and they can be classified into three main functional groups: tunnelers make vertical shafts beneath dung pats, rollers transport dung in a combined horizontal and vertical movement by rolling a dung ball and burying it shallowly, and dwellers reside in the original dung deposit (Doube 1990)
Summary
The manipulation of faeces during the feeding and nesting process of dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) brings about a series of ecosystem functions directly related to the removal of dung (Nichols et al 2008) These functions include economically valuable ecosystem functions and services such as nutrient cycling (Sitters et al 2014), the enhancement of soil hydrological properties through bioturbation (Brown et al 2010), increased plant growth (Bang et al 2005), and a reduced transmission of gastrointestinal parasites (Gregory et al 2015). In this pan-European multi-site experiment, we studied the link between ecosystem functions (dung removal and secondary seed dispersal) and dung beetle diversity and abundance. We document the dung beetle dataset which contains all dung beetle specimens sampled during this project and the dataset resulting from the dung removal and secondary seed dispersal experiments
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