Population and movement ecology of two life-history contrasting dung beetle species in a tropical human-modified landscape

Abstract

The study of population movements and abundance are useful to evaluate the reduction of biodiversity due to changes in landscape composition and configuration. These parameters are modulated by the effects of landscape on individuals' behaviours and species' life histories (e.g., specialists and generalists in forest use). We used hierarchical models and tools derived from network theory to evaluate how landscape characteristics affect the abundance and movement patterns of the neotropical dung beetle species Deltochilum mexicanum and Dichotomius satanas with contrasting life histories in a human-modified landscape of a Mexican cloud forest. Movement and abundance patterns observed for both species and sexes showed opposite responses to the percentage of forest cover and edge density. The specialist species showed a higher abundance, lower movement and spatial distribution limited to the forest, whereas the generalist species showed a lower abundance, higher movement and unrestricted distribution. For both species, males tended to travel longer distances than females, but we observed no difference in the movement metrics between sexes. Our findings highlight the effects of landscape covariables on population structure and dynamics, predict spatial dynamics of species habitat use and could be evidence of functional connectivity at the landscape scale.