0471639 - BC 2018 RIV US eng J - Journal Article
Sládeček, František Xaver Jiří - Segar, Simon Tristram - Lee, C. - Wall, R. - Konvička, Martin
Temporal segregation between dung-inhabiting beetle and fly species.
PLoS ONE. Roč. 12, č. 1 (2017), č. článku e0170426. ISSN 1932-6203. E-ISSN 1932-6203
Grant - others:GA JU(CZ) 152/2016/P
Institutional support: RVO:60077344
Keywords : Coleoptera * intraguild predation * community ecology
OECD category: Ecology
Impact factor: 2.766, year: 2017
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0170426

The coexistence of ecologically similar species (i.e. species utilizing the same resource) is a major topic in ecology. Communities are assembled either through the biotic interactions of ecologically similar species, e.g. competition, or by the abiotic separation of species along gradients of environmental conditions. Here, we investigated the temporal segregation, succession and seasonality of dung-inhabiting Coleoptera and Diptera that utilize an identical resource in exactly the same way. The data were collected from two temperate pastures, one in the United Kingdom and the second in the Czech Republic. There was no evident temporal separation between ecologically similar coleopterous or dipterous taxa during succession. In contrast, these two orders were almost perfectly separated seasonally in both combined and site-specific datasets. Flies were most abundant in the summer, and beetles were more abundant in the spring and autumn. Ecologically similar beetles and flies also displayed seasonal separation in both combined and site-specific data. Analyses within sitespecific data sets revealed such a separation at both the order and species level. Season is therefore the main temporal axis separating ecologically similar species of dung-inhabiting insects in temperate habitats, while succession aggregates species that may have similar environmental tolerances (to e.g. dung moisture). This separation between ecologically similar taxa of beetles and flies may be attributable to either competition-based niche separation or to temperature tolerance-based habitat filtering, since flies have peak activity in warmer months while beetles have peak activity in cooler months.
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0271166