Heterotrophic succession in carrion arthropod assemblages

Abstract

Investigations were conducted on carrion attendant insects succession at two contrasting sites to determine if it was a discrete process or not. The visitation pattern of species revealed that saprophagous and predator species had complementary patterns of arrival and that percentage of reoccurring taxa ranged between 40 and 46%, except during winter when it reached 96%. The forested site always presented a higher richness than urban site, and at both the sites the tendency of species increase showed an exponential growth and then a decline. The arriving pattern was clumped in the earlier decompositional stages. At both the sites no clear boundaries were found between the decomposition stages, thus suggesting a continuous process and also suggesting that the facilitation was not the process generating the observed pattern.