Beyond Dung: Attractiveness of Native and Exotic Fruits to Dung Beetles in the Brazilian Savanna

Correa, C. M. A.¹ [0000-0002-2804-7527] , correa.agro7@gmail.com

da Costa, D.O.²

Vanegas-Alarcón D.A.³ [0000-0002-4394-1711]

Ferreira, K. R.⁴ [0000-0002-2296-8392]

1. Laboratório de Bioecologia de Scarabaeoidea (Scaralab), Universidade Estadual de Mato Grosso do Sul, Aquidauana, Brazil
2. Instituto Nacional deColeoptera (INCol), Cuiabá, Brazil
3. Red de Ecoetología, Instituto de Ecología, Xalapa, México
4. Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia deMato Grosso, Juína, Brazil

Abstract

Dietary breadth enhances animal resilience in environments where resources are unpredictable or declining, enabling speciesto exploit alternative food sources when primary ones are scarce. In dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeinae), frugivory is anincreasingly recognised foraging strategy, particularly in tropical regions experiencing mammalian declines. Here we evaluatedthe attractiveness of native Caryocar brasiliense (pequi) and exotic (banana) fruits to dung beetles in the Brazilian Cerrado.Furthermore, we compared the attractiveness of fresh and 48-h fermented pequi. We hypothesised that traps baited with nativefruits (fresh and fermented) would attract higher abundance, biomass and diversity of dung beetles than those baited with exoticfruit, and that fermented pequi would be more attractive than fresh pequi due to the odour of decaying fruit. We collected 426 in-dividuals, representing 14 dung beetle species, where Canthidium sp. was classified as specialist of fermented pequi. Traps baitedwith pequi, both fresh and fermented, attracted significantly higher diversity, abundance and biomass than banana. However,species richness and composition did not differ significantly among bait types, indicating generalist feeding strategies related tofruits. The fermentation stage of pequi did not influence attraction, suggesting that volatile cues from fresh fruits are sufficientto trigger beetle foraging, highlighting the role of native fruits in supporting dung beetle diversity. These findings highlight thepotential of native fruits as an important food resource for dung beetles and underscore the importance of using native fruitsknown to attract these insects to improve fruit-based sampling methods for dung beetle assemblages in Neotropical landscapes

How to cite

Correa, C. M. A., da Costa, D. O., Vanegas-Alarcón, D. A., & Ferreira, K. R. (2026). Beyond Dung: Attractiveness of Native and Exotic Fruits to Dung Beetles in the Brazilian Savanna. Austral Ecology 51, no. 1: e70169. https://doi.org/10.1111/aec.70169.