Date of Award
7-28-2009
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Biology, MS
First Advisor
Tanja McKay
Committee Members
Bill Humphrey; Donald Kennedy; Thomas Risch
Call Number
LD 251 .A566t 2009 F36
Abstract
The species composition, seasonal activities, and aggregations of dung beetles (Scarabaeidae and Geotrupidae) were monitored from April 2007 to September 2008 using ten dung-baited pitfall traps operated weekly at a site in northeastern Arkansas. Collections comprised 236,880 beetles, representing 22 species including Colobopterus erraticus L. and Onthophagus taurus Schreber, which are new state records. Labarrus pseudolividus Balthasar comprised 97.7 % of the total trap catch, with the majority being collected in June, July and August 2007 which involved two separate mass occurrences during that time. Colonizing dung beetles expressed strong intraspecific aggregation, while interspecific aggregation, though present, were typically of lesser magnitudes. The aggregated nature of colonizing dung beetles supported various criterions of the aggregation model of coexistence. Since these data supported that the aggregation phenomenon is largely facilitated by immigration processes, hypotheses were evaluated regarding the proximate mechanism of dung beetle aggregations.
Rights Management
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Fiene, Justin George, "Species Composition, Seasonal Activity, and Aggregations of Dung Beetles on Cattle Pastures in Arkansas" (2009). Student Theses and Dissertations. 1011.
https://arch.astate.edu/all-etd/1011
