The effects of body mass on dung removal efficiency in dung beetles

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 9; no. 9; p. e107699
• Main Authors: Nervo, Beatrice, Tocco, Claudia, Caprio, Enrico, Palestrini, Claudia, Rolando, Antonio
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 17.09.2014; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Animals; Aphodius; Beetles; Biodiversity; Biology; Biology and Life Sciences; Body mass; Body Size; Climate change; Coleoptera; Coleoptera - anatomy & histology; Coleoptera - metabolism; Dung; Ecology and Environmental Sciences; Ecosystem biology; Ecosystems; Efficiency; Endangered & extinct species; Extinction; Feces; Functional groups; Geotrupidae; Heterogeneity; Laboratories; Life sciences; Mesocosms; Metabolism; Rainforests; Scarabaeidae; Scarabaeoidea; Species; Structure-function relationships; Studies; Alps; Italy

Understanding of the role of body mass in structural-functional relationships is pressing, particularly because species losses often occur non-randomly with respect to body size. Our study examined the effects of dung beetle body mass on dung removal at two levels. First, we used the lab experiment...