How does landscape composition and configuration affect dung beetle communities in Eastern Austrian agricultural...

Understanding the effects of landscape composition on biodiversity is crucial, especially in human-dominated agricultural landscapes. This study focuses on dung beetles, an ecologically significant group, to explore how landscape composition and configuration influences species richness, abundance and community structure of dung beetles in Eastern Austrian agricultural areas.

The primary objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between landscape composition and dung beetle communities. Specifically, we aim to determine how different habitat types within agricultural landscapes affect dung beetle species richness, abundance and community structure.

We sampled dung beetles across 14 study landscapes, each with a diameter of 1 km, varying from homogenous landscapes dominated by annual crops to highly heterogeneous landscapes with diverse habitats such as woodlands, hedgerows, and set-aside land (areas left fallow or uncultivated). The study design focused on comparing dung beetle communities across these varying landscape compositions.

Our results reveal that dung beetle species richness is positively correlated with woodland cover, set-aside land and hedgerow length, while beetle abundance is associated with woodland cover and hedgerow length. Additionally, dung beetle communities were highly nested, with communities from landscapes with less woodland cover nested within those from landscapes with higher woodland cover. This underscores the importance of heterogeneously structured landscapes, such as woodlands, for maintaining diverse dung beetle communities. These findings highlight that a decline in structural diversity, often caused by agricultural intensification, likely reduces the ecosystem services provided by dung beetles.

The study's findings emphasize the significance of maintaining landscape structural diversity to support dung beetle communities and their associated ecosystem services. Recommendations for landscape management and planning include promoting heterogeneous landscapes with set-aside land to enhance biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in agricultural areas.