The Response of Dung Beetle Communities to Land Use Change in the Brazilian Cerrado

Pedro Gomes Peixoto (), Gabriela de Sousa Barbosa, Heytor Lemos Martins, Ana Luíza Franco, Jhansley Ferreira da Mata and Vanesca Korasaki
Additional contact information
Pedro Gomes Peixoto: Department of Crop Protection, School of Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences, São Paulo State University (UNESP), Via de Acesso Professor Paulo Donato Castelane Castellane S/N-Vila Industrial, Jaboticabal 14884-900, São Paulo, Brazil
Gabriela de Sousa Barbosa: Department of Crop Protection, School of Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences, São Paulo State University (UNESP), Via de Acesso Professor Paulo Donato Castelane Castellane S/N-Vila Industrial, Jaboticabal 14884-900, São Paulo, Brazil
Heytor Lemos Martins: Department of Biology, School of Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences, São Paulo State University (UNESP), Jaboticabal 14884-900, São Paulo, Brazil
Ana Luíza Franco: Graduate Program in Veterinary Sciences (One Health), School of Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences, São Paulo State University (UNESP), Jaboticabal 14884-900, São Paulo, Brazil
Jhansley Ferreira da Mata: Graduate Program in Environmental Sciences, Universidade do Estado de Minas Gerais (UEMG), Unidade Frutal, Frutal 38202-436, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Vanesca Korasaki: Graduate Program in Environmental Sciences, Universidade do Estado de Minas Gerais (UEMG), Unidade Frutal, Frutal 38202-436, Minas Gerais, Brazil

Land, 2025, vol. 14, issue 4, 1-19

Abstract: The transformation of the Cerrado biome into areas with different levels of activity and anthropic pressure negatively impacts biodiversity. This study evaluated the response of the dung beetle community to changes in land use systems: forests, rubber trees, pastures, and soybeans. Five areas were sampled in each system with a minimum distance of 2 km between them. Dung beetles were collected using pitfall traps, and both local (vegetation density, basal area of wooded vegetation, fractal dimension, litter height, electrical conductance (mV), water content in the soil (%), and soil resistance (kPa)) and landscape-related environmental variables (land use and overall composition and configuration of the landscape surrounding the sampling areas) were measured. In total, 2294 specimens were collected and distributed among 34 species and 18 genera. There was no significant difference in abundance between the systems, but differences in the number of species and biomass were observed between forest and soybean systems, as well as a separation of communities between the tree-covered (forest and rubber tree) and open (pasture and soybean) systems. Density and arboreal basal area were the main predictive variables for the diversity of the dung beetle community, reinforcing the importance of vegetation cover for maintaining diversity, whereas local and landscape-related variables influenced community composition.

Keywords: bioindicator; biodiversity; coprophagous beetle; habitat shift; Scarabaeinae; land use intensification (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/14/4/781/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/14/4/781/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:14:y:2025:i:4:p:781-:d:1628458

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().