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Aggregation in insect communities colonizing cattle-dung

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2009

R. Wall  and
C.M. Lee
R. Wall*
Affiliation:
School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, Woodland Road, Bristol, BS8 1UG, UK
C.M. Lee
Affiliation:
School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, Woodland Road, Bristol, BS8 1UG, UK
*
*Author for correspondence Fax: 0 44 0117 3317 985 E-mail: richard.wall@bristol.ac.uk
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Abstract

Ruminant dung is a highly ephemeral, patchily distributed resource, which is used by a diverse community of invertebrate species. In such environments, high levels of insect aggregation may be important in facilitating stability and coexistence across patchily distributed populations. The aim of the present work was to quantify the aggregation of the insects colonising cow-dung in cattle pasture in southwest England and to test the hypothesis that the dung-pat community assemblage observed was the result of stochastic colonization. This was examined using batches of ten standardised, 1.5 kg, artificial cow pats placed out in cattle pastures in each of 24 weeks between May and October in 2001. Pats were left exposed in the field for seven days before being brought back to the laboratory, where any insect colonizers were collected and identified. Individual pats contained, on average, only half the number of insect taxa present in an entire batch put out at any one time. All larval coleopteran taxa, 20 of the 22 adult coleopteran taxa and 22 of the 23 dipteran taxa, showed significant aggregation, with the abundance of most taxa within pats approximating a negative binomial distribution. A simulation analysis was used to show that the observed relative frequency of taxa within pats did not differ from that expected by chance if colonisation is a random binomial event in which each species colonises a pat independently of all other species. Aggregated populations, of even highly abundant insects, may be more susceptible to the deleterious effects of insecticidal contaminants in dung than if they were evenly distributed, if by chance they colonize a pat containing insecticidal residues from a recently treated animal.

Keywords

aggregationColeopteracompetitioncow dungDipteradung-decomposition
Type
Research Paper
Information
Bulletin of Entomological Research , Volume 100 , Issue 4 , August 2010 , pp. 481 - 487
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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