Departamento de Ecologia e Zoologia, Centro de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Brasil.
PLoS One. 2021 Jan 6;16(1):e0244783. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0244783. eCollection 2021.
The loss of biodiversity-caused mainly by habitat destruction-is one of the environmental problems with major repercussions on ecosystem functioning. Nevertheless, our understanding of the functional consequences of habitat changes on the communities and ecosystems remains limited to a small number of case studies. We evaluated the change in taxonomic and functional diversity of copro-necrophagous beetles (Scarabaeinae) and their relationship with the varying environmental factors present in four habitats with different degrees of disturbance. Furthermore, we evaluated how changes in taxonomic and functional diversity affect the rates of excrement removal. The collections were carried out at four locations in the state of Santa Catarina, Southern Brazil, on natural systems with different degrees of disturbances (forests in advanced and initial succession) and agroecosystems (silviculture and pastures dedicated to livestock). We collected a total of 1266 dung beetles distributed in 35 species and classified into 11 functional groups. The taxonomic and functional diversity analyses showed that habitats that still maintain an arboreal stratum do not present differences between them, in contrast to habitats dedicated to livestock where there was a significant loss of species and functional groups. The distance between the trees, as well as the air and soil temperatures were determining factors in the selection of species and functional groups. Some of these environmental factors explain the differences in functional traits, represented as varying abundances of the species found. The rates of manure removal from the ecosystem were positively correlated to taxonomic and functional richness as well as biomass of beetles. Thus, we can conclude that habitats with tree strata have the capacity to preserve a larger proportion of the regional set of species as well as the important ones, while preserving the taxonomic and functional diversity and the ecosystem functions, such as the excrement removal rate.
生物多样性的丧失——主要是由栖息地破坏引起的——是对生态系统功能产生重大影响的环境问题之一。然而，我们对栖息地变化对群落和生态系统功能的影响的理解仍然局限于少数案例研究。我们评估了在四个具有不同干扰程度的栖息地中，分类和功能多样性的变化对共生食粪甲虫（Scarabaeinae）的影响，以及它们与不同环境因素的关系。此外，我们还评估了分类和功能多样性的变化如何影响粪便清除率。这些收集是在巴西南里奥格兰德州的四个地点进行的，这些地点的自然系统具有不同程度的干扰（演替后期和演替初期的森林）和农业生态系统（用于林业和畜牧业的牧场）。我们共收集了 1266 只分布在 35 个物种中的粪甲虫，并将其分为 11 个功能组。分类和功能多样性分析表明，仍然保留树木层的栖息地之间没有差异，而专门用于畜牧业的栖息地则存在物种和功能组的显著丧失。树木之间的距离以及空气和土壤温度是物种和功能组选择的决定性因素。这些环境因素中的一些解释了功能特征的差异，表现为发现的物种的丰度变化。从生态系统中去除粪便的速度与分类和功能丰富度以及甲虫的生物量呈正相关。因此，我们可以得出结论，具有树木层的栖息地能够保留更大比例的区域物种以及重要物种，同时保持分类和功能多样性以及生态系统功能，例如粪便清除率。
