More Like this

1. Seasonality, Distribution, and Diversity of Dung Beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae, Aphodiinae and Geotrupidae: Geotrupinae) in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, USA

   https://doi.org/10.1649/0010-065X-77.3.285  

   Mamantov, Margaret A. ; Sheldon, Kimberly S. ( September 2023 , The Coleopterists Bulletin)
2. Microbial Dispersal, Including Bison Dung Vectored Dispersal, Increases Soil Microbial Diversity in a Grassland Ecosystem

   https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2022.825193  

   Hawkins, Jaide H. ; Zeglin, Lydia H. ( March 2022 , Frontiers in Microbiology)

   Microbial communities display biogeographical patterns that are driven by local environmental conditions and dispersal limitation, but the relative importance of underlying dispersal mechanisms and their consequences on community structure are not well described. High dispersal rates can cause soil microbial communities to become more homogenous across space and therefore it is important to identify factors that promote dispersal. This study experimentally manipulated microbial dispersal within different land management treatments at a native tallgrass prairie site, by changing the relative openness of soil to dispersal and by simulating vector dispersal via bison dung addition. We deployed experimental soil bags with mesh open or closed to dispersal, and placed bison dung over a subset of these bags, to areas with three different land managements: active bison grazing and annual fire, annual fire but no bison grazing, and no bison grazing with infrequent fire. We expected microbial dispersal to be highest in grazed and burned environments, and that the addition of dung would consistently increase overall microbial richness and lead to homogenization of communities over time. Results show that dispersal rates, as the accumulation of taxa over the course of the 3-month experiment, increase taxonomic richness similarly in all land management treatments. Additionally, bison dung seems to be serving as a dispersal and homogenization vector, based on the consistently higher taxon richness and increased community similarity across contrasting grazing and fire treatments when dung is added. This finding also points to microbial dispersal as an important function that herbivores perform in grassland ecosystems, and in turn, as a function that was lost at a continental scale following bison extermination across the Great Plains of North America in the nineteenth century. This study is the first to detect that dispersal and vector dispersal by grazing mammals promote grassland soil microbial diversity and affect microbial community composition. 

   more » « less
3. Notch signaling patterns head horn shape in the bull-headed dung beetle Onthophagus taurus

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s00427-020-00645-w  

   Crabtree, Jordan R. ; Macagno, Anna L. ; Moczek, Armin P. ; Rohner, Patrick T. ; Hu, Yonggang ( January 2020 , Development Genes and Evolution)
4. The origins of novelty from within the confines of homology: the developmental evolution of the digging tibia of dung beetles

   https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.2427  

   Linz, David M. ; Hu, Yonggang ; Moczek, Armin P. ( February 2019 , Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences)
5. Allometric plasticity and the evolution of environment-by-environment (E×E) interactions during a rapid range expansion of a dung beetle

   https://doi.org/10.1093/evolut/qpac071  

   Rohner, Patrick T ; Moczek, Armin P ( December 2022 , Evolution)

   Abstract Plastic responses to environmental conditions may themselves depend on other environmental conditions, but how such environment-by-environment (E×E) interactions may impact evolution remains unclear. We investigate how temperature shapes the nutritional polyphenism in horn length in a beetle and test whether “allometric plasticity” (a form of E×E) predicts latitudinal differentiation during a rapid range expansion. Rearing populations under common garden conditions demonstrates that increased temperatures reduce the body size threshold separating two male morphs in all populations but also that the magnitude of temperature-dependent changes in allometry diverged across recently established populations. Furthermore, we found a latitudinal increase in the threshold in the species’ exotic range at one of the temperatures, suggesting that allometric plasticity in response to temperature may predict evolved clinal differences. Our findings demonstrate that E×E interactions can be similar in magnitude to G×E interactions and that allometric plasticity and its evolution may impact population’s responses to environmental changes. 

   more » « less