Dung Beetle (Coleoptera: Scarabaeoidea) Community Response to Clear-cutting in the Missouri Ozarks

Abstract

Dung beetles (Scarabaeoidea) show a mixed response to forest alteration (Davis et al., 2001; Scheffler, 2005). In some studies, community attributes are negatively affected by anthropogenic forest disturbance, not only reducing beetle abundance and their species richness and diversity (e.g., Colombian Amazon: Howden and Nealis (1975), but also limiting their movement between undisturbed forest patches (Klein, 1989). In other studies, however, logging may reduce species richness only after extreme alteration of the landscape. For example, species richness did not differ between virgin forest and selectively logged forest in Uganda (Nummelin and Hanski, 1989) and between undisturbed forest, mosaics of forest, and several types of cultivars, including cacao, citrus, banana, avocado, pineapple, and papaya in Mexico (Estrada and Coates-Estrada, 2002). Thus, global generalizations about the impacts of forest disturbance, and logging in particular, would be premature at the this time given the variability in results seen in available studies and the general lack of studies in the temperate zone. In the present study we document the local effects of clear-cutting on the dung beetle community in a Missouri Ozark forest by contrasting community attributes between adjacent clear-cuts and uncut, closed canopy forests. We chose dung beetles because they are easily sampled and taxonomically well known, particularly in the temperate zone. In addition, dung beetles perform important ecological functions. Beetle- mediated dung burial increases the rate of nutrient cycling which in turn increases the available nitrogen and phosphorous for plants (Halffter and Mathews, 1966; Mittal, 1993). Dung beetles also are responsible for secondary dispersal of seeds, influencing forest succession (Estrada and Coates-Estrada, 1991). Finally, despite the depth of taxonomical knowledge of temperate Scarabaeoidea, to the best of our knowledge there are no published studies on the effects of anthropogenic forest disturbance on communities of dung beetles in temperate North America. We conducted our study in the context of the Missouri Ozark Forest Ecosystem Project (MOFEP), a large-scale, long-term, replicated before-after/control-impact experiment designed to determine the effects of even-aged (i.e., clear-cutting) and unevenaged (i.e., thinning) management on multiple forest flora and fauna (Brookshire et al., 1997; Gram et al., 2001).