Dung Beetle Ecology and Ecosystem Function

Dung beetles (Scarabaeinae and related groups) occupy a pivotal role in terrestrial ecosystems by processing vertebrate faeces and thereby driving nutrient cycling, soil structure modulation and secondary seed dispersal. Through tunnelling, rolling or dwelling behaviours, they fragment and bury dung, accelerating decomposition, enhancing microbial activity and redistributing organic matter and nutrients into soil profiles. This activity improves soil aeration and water infiltration, supports plant growth and regulates greenhouse-gas emissions from dung pats. Dung beetles also serve as bioindicators of habitat quality and land-use change, with community composition reflecting levels of disturbance in tropical forests, grasslands and agroecosystems. Functional traits such as body size, diel activity and nesting strategy underpin complementary roles in ecosystem processes. Global declines in dung beetle diversity, driven by habitat loss, agricultural intensification and chemical contamination, threaten the resilience of ecosystem functions. Conservation and restoration efforts increasingly recognise the value of maintaining dung beetle functional diversity to secure ecosystem multifunctionality and sustainable livestock production.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent work has demonstrated that dung removal rates increase with beetle species richness across diverse pasture systems but that within-site dung removal is consistently enhanced by functional trait diversity, regardless of grazing intensity or climatic variation. This indicates that preserving a broad range of ecological roles among co-occurring species can buffer ecosystem services against agricultural intensification. Seminal analyses have also quantified the impact of dung beetles on greenhouse-gas fluxes from cattle grazing: at the dung-pat and pasture scales, beetle activity can reduce methane and carbon dioxide emissions by up to 10–12 per cent, though the effect diminishes when integrated over entire production lifecycles. These findings underscore the need to incorporate biotic regulators into models of agroecosystem greenhouse-gas budgets and to promote management practices that sustain dung beetle communities.

Dung Beetle Ecology and Ecosystem Function publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in dung beetle ecology and ecosystem function across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Functional diversity: Variation in species’ traits within a community that influences the range and efficiency of ecosystem processes.

Ecosystem multifunctionality: The simultaneous delivery of multiple ecosystem functions, such as nutrient cycling, soil formation and greenhouse-gas regulation.

Structural equation modelling (SEM): A statistical framework for testing hypothesised causal relationships among multiple interdependent variables.

Functional rarity: The occurrence of species possessing unique combinations of traits that are infrequent in the broader community.

Dung pat: A fresh deposition of vertebrate faeces on the soil surface, serving as a resource patch for coprophagous organisms.

References

1. Dung removal increases under higher dung beetle functional diversity regardless of grazing intensification. Nature Communications (2023).
2. The role of dung beetles in reducing greenhouse gas emissions from cattle farming. Scientific Reports (2016).
3. Detecting functional rarity in a hyperdiverse Amazonian dung beetle assemblage. Ecological Indicators (2023).
4. Residues of pesticides in dairy cow rations and fly treatments reduce the number of Coleoptera in dung. Agriculture Ecosystems & Environment (2023).
5. Dung beetles drive direct and indirect changes in ecosystem multifunctionality. Functional Ecology (2024).