title: Variegated tropical landscapes conserve diverse dung beetle communities.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Conserving biodiversity in tropical landscapes is a major challenge to scientists and conservationists. Current rates of deforestation, fragmentation, and land use intensification are producing variegated landscapes with undetermined values for the conservation of biological communities and ecosystem functioning. Here, we investigate the importance of tropical variegated landscapes to biodiversity conservation, using dung beetle as focal taxa.
  
  
  METHODS
  The study was carried out in 12 variegated landscapes where dung beetles were sampled using six pitfall traps, 30 m apart from each other, along a transect in each studied landscape use and cover classes-LUCC (forest fragment and corridor, coffee plantation, and pasture). We baited each pitfall trap with 30 g of human feces and left open for a 48 h period. We also measured three environmental variables reflecting structural differences among the studied classes: canopy cover, local vegetation heterogeneity and soil sand content.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We collected 52 species and 2,695 individuals of dung beetles. We observed significant differences in the mean species richness, abundance and biomass among classes, with forest fragments presenting the highest values, forest corridors and coffee plantations presenting intermediate values, and pastures the lowest values. Regarding community structure, we also found significant differences among classes. Canopy cover was the only variable explaining variation in dung beetle species richness, abundance, biomass, and community structure. The relative importance of spatial turnover was greater than nestedness-resultant component in all studied landscapes.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study evaluated the ecological patterns of dung beetle communities in variegated tropical landscapes highlighting the importance of these landscapes for conservation of tropical biodiversity. However, we encourage variegation for the management of landscapes that have already been fragmented or as a complementary initiative of current conservation practices (e.g., protection of natural habitats and establishment of reserves).
authors.affiliation: Setor de Ecologia/Departamento de Biologia, Universidade Federal de Lavras, Lavras, MG, Brazil.
authors.forename: Cristiane
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Costa
authors.affiliation: Setor de Ecologia/Departamento de Biologia, Universidade Federal de Lavras, Lavras, MG, Brazil.|Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Victor Hugo F
authors.initials: VHF
authors.lastname: Oliveira
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Entomologia, Universidade Federal de Lavras, Lavras, MG, Brazil.
authors.forename: Rafaella
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Maciel
authors.affiliation: Setor de Ecologia/Departamento de Biologia, Universidade Federal de Lavras, Lavras, MG, Brazil.|Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Wallace
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Beiroz
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Ciências Exatas e da Terra, Universidade do Estado de Minas Gerais, Frutal, MG, Brazil.
authors.forename: Vanesca
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Korasaki
authors.affiliation: Setor de Ecologia/Departamento de Biologia, Universidade Federal de Lavras, Lavras, MG, Brazil.|Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Julio
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Louzada
keywords: Agriculture; Biodiversity conservation; Countryside; Forest corridors; Forest fragments; Hedgerow; Landscape modification; Scarabaeinae