Dung beetle response to a wetter climate

Dung beetles, particularly the Scarabaeinae, provide valuable ecosystem services such as increasing water infiltration through soil, cycling nutrients, and removing dung from cattle pastures through their feeding and burying behaviors. One of the biggest threats to these services is global climate change. In the eastern U.S, climatologists have predicted an increase in severe rainfall events between intervals of hot humid days when moisture is held in the atmosphere and the ground stays dry for extended periods of time. Extremely dry soil does not absorb water as well as moderately wetted soil: therefore many more flooding events are predicted as average global temperatures increases. Because we hypothesize flooding will impact access and attractiveness of cow dung to adult Scarabaeinae, and survival of offspring within and below dung pats, we will determine how dung beetles use dung pats in a climate with more flooding. In a factorial experiment, we will create mesocosms in which we manipulate the timing (early/late) of water inundating a dung pat and the timing of colonization by dung beetles (early colonizers vs. late colonizers) . We will measure at how the timing of water inundation influences the recruitment dung beetles species to the pat and the decomposition of the feces. By combining these data with mapping possible flood impacted areas, we will be able to contribute to models of decomposition and nutrient cycling in climate models of pastures in the Eastern US.