PhD in Biological Sciences and Applied Biotechnologies

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Phd thesis

Specific and intraspecific drivers of ecosystem services provided by dung beetles

Dung beetles (Coleoptera, Scarabaeoidea) play a key role in maintaining the proper functioning of pasture ecosystems. Many ecological functions performed by dung beetles can be considered as ecosystem services given their utility to humans.

The main aim of the project will be to verify which are the specific (i.e., species identity) and intraspecific drivers of ecosystem services provided by dung beetles. Dung beetles are direct providers of ecosystem services, from dung removal and dung burial to a whole series of services that derive from the manipulation of dung i.e., soil fertility and aeration, secondary seed dispersal and plant growth enhancement, parasite suppression and fly control, transport of dung-derived nitrogen into the soil, and reduction of greenhouse gases emitted by the dung. Species identity has been evaluated only in a few studies, whereas it should be considered more attentively since some species have peculiar traits (e.g., morphological traits and reproductive behaviour) that can affect ecosystem services they provide. Intraspecific drivers of ecosystem functionality have also been largely ignored. Among these, individual personality (which drives different individuals to behave in specific ways) may be an important intraspecific driver of ecological functionality. Dung beetles can also be indirect providers of ecosystem services by hosting a specialised gut microbiota involved in dung mineralisation and pathogen suppression. Despite microbiological investigations on gut symbionts of insects are fast-growing, the ecosystem services provided by microbiota are poorly known.

It is glaring from the above that there is a need to analyse the direct and indirect ecosystem functionality of dung beetles at a detail hierarchical level by integrating ecological, ethological and biomolecular analytical perspectives, and this is exactly the aim of this research project.

A significant feature of this project is the use of a transdisciplinary methodological approach. The ecosystem services directly provided by dung beetles will be assessed using ecological techniques of evaluation of dung removal, while the effect of individual personality and the possible presence of etho-ecological syndromes will include the use of video recordings and behavioural arenas. Ecosystem services indirectly provided by dung beetles will be studied through biomolecular barcoding techniques applied to microbial communities living in dung beetle gut.