Forest complexity drives dung beetle assemblages along an edge‐interior gradient in the southwest Amazon rainforest

Abstract

1. The habitat heterogeneity hypothesis predicts that heterogeneous habitats may provide more niches and diverse ways of exploiting environmental resources, thereby allowing more species to coexist, persist and diversify.2. We aimed to investigate how an edge‐interior gradient related to forest complexity influences species composition, abundance and richness of dung beetles in the western Amazon rainforest. We expected dung beetle abundance and richness to increase along the forest edge‐interior gradient, in accordance with the habitat heterogeneity hypothesis. We also expected strong changes in species composition driven by species turnover in the forest interior and nestedness along the forest edges. We sampled dung beetles using baited pitfall traps across an edge‐interior gradient. We also assessed the variation in forest features along the edge‐interior gradient to identify changes in forest complexity.3. Both species richness and abundance of dung beetles increased along the forest edge‐interior, following the gradient of forest complexity. The Sorensen dissimilarity of dung beetle assemblages was higher among sampling units placed near the forest edge, although neither turnover, nor nestedness was different between the extremes of the forest edge‐interior gradient. There was a clear compositional change along the edge‐interior gradient mostly driven by species turnover. Individual indicator value analysis revealed that species were strongly associated with the forest interior conditions.4. The simplification of the Amazon rainforest near clearings causes compositional changes in dung beetle assemblages. These changes are characterised by species‐poor and low‐abundance assemblages and may impair dung beetle ecological functions and therefore forest recovery.