Beyond Dung: Attractiveness of Native and Exotic Fruits to Dung Beetles in the Brazilian Savanna

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Abstract
Dietary breadth enhances animal resilience in environments where resources are unpredictable or declining, enabling species to exploit alternative food sources when primary ones are scarce. In dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeinae), frugivory is an increasingly recognised foraging strategy, particularly in tropical regions experiencing mammalian declines. Here we evaluated the attractiveness of native Caryocar brasiliense (pequi) and exotic (banana) fruits to dung beetles in the Brazilian Cerrado. Furthermore, we compared the attractiveness of fresh and 48‐h fermented pequi. We hypothesised that traps baited with native fruits (fresh and fermented) would attract higher abundance, biomass and diversity of dung beetles than those baited with exotic fruit, and that fermented pequi would be more attractive than fresh pequi due to the odour of decaying fruit. We collected 426 individuals, representing 14 dung beetle species, where Canthidium sp. was classified as specialist of fermented pequi. Traps baited with pequi, both fresh and fermented, attracted significantly higher diversity, abundance and biomass than banana. However, species richness and composition did not differ significantly among bait types, indicating generalist feeding strategies related to fruits. The fermentation stage of pequi did not influence attraction, suggesting that volatile cues from fresh fruits are sufficient to trigger beetle foraging, highlighting the role of native fruits in supporting dung beetle diversity. These findings highlight the potential of native fruits as an important food resource for dung beetles and underscore the importance of using native fruits known to attract these insects to improve fruit‐based sampling methods for dung beetle assemblages in Neotropical landscapes.
Funding Information
  • Fundação de Apoio ao Desenvolvimento do Ensino, Ciência e Tecnologia do Estado de Mato Grosso do Sul
  • Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (408430/2024‐9)

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