Understanding the drivers of beta-diversity improves conservation prioritization for Central European dung beetles

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F60076658%3A12310%2F22%3A43904862" target="_blank" >RIV/60076658:12310/22:43904862 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000632072200235X?via%3Dihub" target="_blank" >https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000632072200235X?via%3Dihub</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2022.109682" target="_blank" >10.1016/j.biocon.2022.109682</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Understanding the drivers of beta-diversity improves conservation prioritization for Central European dung beetles

Original language description

The conversion and degradation of natural habitats has caused global declines in terrestrial insect diversity. Conserving insect diversity has therefore gained increasing attention in international conservation agendas. Dung beetles (Geotrupidae, Scarabaeidae) are diverse and abundant coprophagous insects who remove dung and enhance nutrient cycling. Today, half of Central European dung beetle species are threatened. While past research has concentrated on local (alpha-diversity) of dung beetles, the compositional differences between sites (beta-diversity) have been largely neglected. However, maximizing the overall outcome of conservation measures requires a detailed understanding of the factors determining compositional differences between sites. We separated beta-diversity of dung beetle communities, sampled across the Czech Republic, into independent components of spatial turnover and nestedness. We tested the relative importance of space, temperature, precipitation, elevation, season, grazing herbivore and antiparasitic treatment via multiple regressions for distance matrices to reveal which factors drive the beta-diversity of dung beetle communities. Our results show that beta-diversity of dung beetle communities is mostly driven by spatial distance, followed by similarly strong effects of season and mean temperature. Herbivore type and antiparasitic treatment had lesser influence than environment but can be influenced by conservation management. Nevertheless, antiparasitic treatment increased nestedness and resulted in an overall lower gamma-diversity. Based on the principle of complementarity, we recommend - in order of decreasing importance - giving (1) conservation priority to the most distant sites, under (2) the largest differences in mean annual temperature, ensure (3) year-round grazing by (4) multiple herbivore species, and (5) avoid using antiparasitics.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

10618 - Ecology

Project

—

Continuities

S - Specificky vyzkum na vysokych skolach

Publication year

2022

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Biological Conservation

ISSN

0006-3207

e-ISSN

1873-2917

Volume of the periodical

273

Issue of the periodical within the volume

SEP 2022

Country of publishing house

GB - UNITED KINGDOM

Number of pages

8

Pages from-to

nestrankovano

UT code for WoS article

000848351600007

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85136177641