Table 1 Thermal niche of dung beetles inhabiting the native forests and different habitats (Agroforestry parklands and Open pastures) of the Atlantic forest of Argentina.

From: Thermal niche helps to explain the ability of dung beetles to exploit disturbed habitats

Habitat

Activity

Species

N

Average mass (g) (± s.d.)

Average endothermy (°C) (± s.d.)

Average thorax slope (± s.d.)

Average abdomen slope (± s.d.)

Average environmental slope (± s.d.)

Slopes difference Tth − Tabd (df = 1)

Slopes difference Tabd − Tenv (df = 1)

H

P

H

P

Native forests

D

Canthon smaragdulus (Fabricius, 1781)**

8

0.156 ± 0.08

3.138 ± 0.68

− 0.0025 ± 0.02

− 0.0034 ± 0.01

0.0004 ± 1.7e−3

2.8e−3

0.9807

0.03

0.8561

Coprophanaeus saphirinus (Sturm, 1826)**

14

0.423 ± 0.23

7.254 ± 1.06

0.0026 ± 0.01

− 0.0049 ± 0.01

0.0013 ± 2.8e−3

4.5

0.0345

3.5

0.0595

E/N/C

Deltochilum brasiliensis (Castelnau, 1,840)**

8

1.008 ± 0.07

2.337 ± 1.26

− 0.0027 ± 0.01

− 0.0008 ± 0.01

− 0.0005 ± 8.9e−4

0.04

0.8775

0.4

0.5546

Deltochilum furcatum (Castelnau, 1,840)*

3

0.663 ± 0.05

3.985 ± 0.79

0.0104 ± 0.01

− 0.0022 ± 0.01

0.0013 ± 9.9e−4

2.3

0.2000

0.4

0.7000

Deltochilum morbillosum (Burmeister, 1848)***

6

0.228 ± 0.02

2.885 ± 0.47

0.0002 ± 3.1e−3

− 0.0006 ± 1.5e−3

− 3.33e−5 ± 7.3e−4

0.03

0.8777

0.8

0.4221

Agroforestry parklands

D

Canthon conformis (Harold, 1868)*

13

0.04 ± 0.01

3.332 ± 0.97

− 0.0058 ± 0.01

− 0.0087 ± 0.01

0.0008 ± 1.6e−3

0.4

0.5049

2.1

0.1438

Canthon quinquemaculatus (Castelnau, 1840)*

10

0.17 ± 0.02

1.841 ± 0.43

− 0.0063 ± 3.5e−3

− 0.0036 ± 4.2e−3

− 0.0001 ± 7.1e−4

2.1

0.1506

3

0.0819

Canthon histrio (Lepeletier and Serville, 1828)*

8

0.147 ± 0.02

3.771 ± 0.69

− 0.0051 ± 0.01

0.0034 ± 0.01

0.00001 ± 2.1e−3

2.5

0.1304

2.5

0.1304

E/N/C

Coprophanaeus cyanescens (Olsoufieff, 1924)*

6

1.713 ± 0.28

9.217 ± 3.99

0.0048 ± 0.01

0.0127 ± 0.03

0.0017 ± 2.1e−3

0.1

0.7835

0.1

0.7565

Deltochilum aff. komareki (Balthasar, 1939)*

5

0.232 ± 0.05

2.019 ± 0.92

0.0021 ± 0.01

− 0.0020 ± 3.5e−3

0.0006 ± 2.1e−3

0.3

0.6905

1.3

0.3095

Dichotomius carbonarius (Mannerheim, 1829)***

7

0.525 ± 0.05

4.042 ± 0.68

− 0.0033 ± 3.3e−3

− 0.0011 ± 2.6e−3

0.0067 ± 0.01

1.6

0.2203

1.5

0.2328

Dichotomius mormon (Ljungh, 1799)*

8

1.021 ± 0.16

5.025 ± 1.68

0.0003 ± 0.01

0.0015 ± 4.8e−3

0.0004 ± 1e−3

0.5

0.5054

0.1

0.7422

Dichotomius sericeus (Harold, 1867)*

5

0.336 ± 0.08

2.779 ± 2.78

0.0099 ± 0.02

0.0022 ± 0.01

− 0.0007 ± 8.7e−4

0.01

> 0.9999

2.4

0.1508

Open pastures

D

Canthon curvodilatus (Schmidt, 1922)**

4

0.027 ± 2.9e−3

0.472 ± 0.14

− 0.0014 ± 0.01

− 0.0004 ± 0.01

0.0004 ± 8.1e−4

0.3

0.6857

1.3

0.3429

Canthon podagricus (Harold, 1868)**

11

0.028 ± 3.5e−3

1.142 ± 0.73

0.0009 ± 0.01

0.0018 ± 0.02

0.0001 ± 1.5e−3

0.1

0.7926

0.2

0.6222

E/N/C

Dichotomius nisus (Olivier, 1789)*

6

0.511 ± 0.02

6.143 ± 1.14

0.0006 ± 1.6e−3

0.0011 ± 3.7e−3

0.0014 ± 2.1e−3

0

> 0.9999

0.3

0.6126

Ontherus sulcator (Fabricius, 1775)*

6

0.317 ± 0.02

2.248 ± 0.33

0.0020 ± 4.6e−3

0.0019 ± 4.8e−3

− 0.0003 ± 1.8e−3

0.03

0.8777

0.2

0.6667

  1. D = diurnal and E/N/C = evening/nocturnal/crepuscular, and asterisks represent the source used to establish the activity: *Daily activity sampling, **Hernández48, ***Hernández et al.49. The value highlighted in bold represents P < 0.05 and H is the statistic of Kruskal–Wallis H test. N = number of replicates (sampling size) by species, s.d. = standard deviation and df = degrees of freedom. In slopes difference, Tth = thorax temperature, Tabd = abdomen temperature and Tenv = environment temperature.
Back to article page