What is it about?
For each of three species of dung beetles, we developed bioclimatic models to predict the likelihood of establishment at various locations in North America. These models combine information on the biology of the insect with climate data for sites where the species is already established.
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Why is it important?
Each of these dung beetle species is of European origin; each helps to accelerate the degradation of cattle dung on pastures. All three species have been used in redistribution programs. The models can help to enhance the success of these redistribution programs by identifying areas suitable for beetle establishment.
Perspectives
This is the first paper I've written that has made use of social media to identify insect collection sites. It was also an interesting study because of the ground-truthing validation step we employed. For five years after model development, we tried to collect the species in locations where they were not reported to occur, but for which the models predicted likely establishment success.
Kevin Floate
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Bioclimatic analyses for the distributions of Onthophagus nuchicornis, Onthophagus taurus, and Digitonthophagus gazella (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) in North America, The Canadian Entomologist, June 2017, Cambridge University Press,
DOI: 10.4039/tce.2017.20.
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