Quantifying immediate and delayed effects of anthelmintic exposure on ecosystem functioning supported by a common dung beetle species.

ABSTRACT: Dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeoidea) support numerous ecosystem functions in livestock-grazed pastures. Exposure to veterinary anthelmintic residues in livestock dung can have lethal and sublethal effects on dung beetles, and can reduce rates of dung removal, but the immediate and longer-term consequences for other dung beetle mediated functions have rarely been studied. We investigated the consequences of anthelmintic exposure on survival of the dung beetle Aphodius fossor and its delivery of four ecosystems functions that underpin pasture production: dung removal, soil fauna feeding activity, primary productivity, and reduction of soil compaction. We tested whether anthelmintic exposure had immediate or delayed effects on these functions individually and simultaneously (i.e., ecosyst

SUBMITTER: Manning P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5553719 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature