Abstract

The Amazon Rainforest is facing high rates of deforestation, leaving anthropogenically dominated landscapes across the Amazon. Understanding the biodiversity response to the effects of rainfall seasonality can provide important examples of how species may respond to drastic climate conditions in anthropogenic landscapes. Here, we sampled dung beetles across the same Amazon forest sites during the rainy and dry seasons to evaluate the effect of seasonality on biodiversity patterns. We found a significant space–time interaction for the whole set of forest sites indicating that the spatial structure of the species abundance data has changed significantly between seasons. Dung beetle abundance and species richness was higher in the rainy season when evaluating all species and separately for nesting behavior group. For presence-absence and abundance data of the whole assemblage, the mean differences between losses and gains over all forest sites was negative, indicating dominance of species and individuals-per-species losses across all forest sites. Eleven species (5 tunnellers, 4 rollers, and 2 dwellers) had significant decreases in abundances in the forest sites from the rainy to the dry season, whereas one roller species increased in abundance from the rainy to the dry season. Rainfall seasonality drives the temporal patterns of dung beetle diversity in the Amazonian forests in the study region in the arc of deforestation.

Implications for insect conservation

Understanding species vulnerability to changes in climatic conditions could help to predict species distributions in an increased scenario of higher temperatures and longer drought periods during dry seasons in the near future.

中文翻译：

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降雨季节驱动森林砍伐弧线下亚马逊森林中的甲虫时空分布

摘要

亚马逊雨林正面临着毁林的高比率，在整个亚马逊河上留下了人为主导的景观。了解生物多样性对降雨季节影响的反应可以提供重要的例子，说明物种如何对人为景观中的剧烈气候条件做出反应。在这里，我们在雨季和旱季期间在同一亚马逊森林地带采样了甲虫，以评估季节性对生物多样性模式的影响。我们发现整个森林地点之间存在显着的时空相互作用，表明物种丰度数据的空间结构在各个季节之间发生了显着变化。在评估所有物种时，粪便甲虫的丰度和物种丰富度在雨季较高，而对于筑巢行为组，粪便甲虫的丰度和物种丰富度较高。对于整个种群的存在与否数据，在所有林地中损失与收益之间的平均差异为负，表明在所有林地中物种和个人/物种损失占优势。从雨季到旱季，林地中的11种树种（5个隧道工人，4个滚轮和2个居民）的丰度显着下降，而从雨季到旱季，一种树种的丰度增加。降雨季节驱动着研究区域的森林砍伐弧线中亚马逊甲虫森林中甲虫多样性的时间模式。从雨季到旱季，林地的丰度显着下降，有4个滚轮和2个居民），而从雨季到旱季，有1个滚轮物种的丰度增加了。降雨季节驱动着研究区域的森林砍伐弧线中亚马逊甲虫森林中甲虫多样性的时间模式。从雨季到旱季，林地的丰度显着下降，有4个滚轮和2个居民），而从雨季到旱季，有1个滚轮物种的丰度增加了。降雨季节驱动着研究区域的森林砍伐弧线中亚马逊甲虫森林中甲虫多样性的时间模式。

对昆虫保护的意义

了解物种对气候条件变化的脆弱性，可以帮助预测在不久的将来干旱季节干旱，高温和干旱的情况下物种分布。