Abstract
Abstract Canthon rutilans cyanescens is a telecoprid and coprophagous dung beetle subspecies that builds two types of balls with feeding and nesting purposes. This paperwork describes some behavior and development time characteristics, as well as it analyses the influence of the type and amount of food on this species feeding and reproductive behavior. Adult individuals were sampled in Atlantic Forest areas in southern Brazil (between 2014 and 2016) and they were kept in laboratory conditions within 24 and 27 °C in a 12 hours photoperiod. Development time was observed on brood balls built by 40 couples fed with domestic dog feces. The weight and number of brood and food balls produced by each couple were measured and counted in an experiment with 50 couples fed with feces from distinct mammal’s species as well as in another experiment with 28 couples fed with 1g and 5g of domestic dog feces, distributed into two groups: small and large body size couples. The subspecies’ behavior varied according to the quality of the food resource, with omnivore feces as the best one, possibly due to the higher nutritional quality and microorganism’s diversity. In addition, individuals’ size influenced parental investment and the availability of food resource affected dung beetle’s reproductive success, since, when less food was offered, smaller amounts of food balls and smaller brood balls were built by the adult couples. Our results demonstrated that Canthon rutilans cyanescens has a rapid development and a behavioral plasticity related to the quality and the amount of food.
Highlights
Within subfamily Scarabaeinae, the tribe Deltochilini Lacordaire 1856 clusters more than 22 dung beetle’s genera (Tarasov and Dimitrov, 2016) which feed both on the larval and adult stages from decomposing organic matter, mainly in the form of mammal feces and dead animals carcasses, by transforming it into small balls and burying it into the ground in tunnels, thereby reallocating food to build their nests (Halffter and Matthews, 1966; Halffter and Edmonds, 1982; Scholtz, 2009a)
The reproductive behavior of Canthon rutilans cyanescens involves the copula next to a food ball (Fig. 1A), which lasts around 30 to 40 min, followed by the subsequent transformation of the food ball into a brood ball, when the females opens a hole with the mouth parts, building a chamber where it lays the egg (Fig. 1B)
Our results demonstrate that Canthon rutilans cyanescens is an insect with a rapid larval growth, the development time can vary according to the diet available for the larvae
Summary
Within subfamily Scarabaeinae, the tribe Deltochilini Lacordaire 1856 clusters more than 22 dung beetle’s genera (Tarasov and Dimitrov, 2016) which feed both on the larval and adult stages from decomposing organic matter, mainly in the form of mammal feces and dead animals carcasses, by transforming it into small balls and burying it into the ground in tunnels, thereby reallocating food to build their nests (Halffter and Matthews, 1966; Halffter and Edmonds, 1982; Scholtz, 2009a) These insects distribute and incorporate organic matter into the soil, besides performing secondary functions, such as soil aeration and seeds dispersal (Nichols et al, 2008).
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