Assembly mechanisms of dung beetles in temperate forests and grazing pastures.

ABSTRACT: The role of deterministic and stochastic mechanisms in community assembly is a key question in ecology, but little is known about their relative contribution in dung beetle assemblages. Moreover, in human modified landscapes these mechanisms are crucial to understand how biodiversity can be maintained in productive agroecosystems. We explored the assembly mechanisms driving dung beetle assemblages in forests and grazed grassland patches, and assessed the role of dung availability, soil hardness and moisture, elevation and land use heterogeneity as environmental predictors of functional diversity. To determine the underlying assembly mechanisms, we estimated functional diversity metrics (functional richness, evenness and divergence) and their departure from the predicted values by null mode

SUBMITTER: Ortega-Martinez IJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6962461 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature