New faunal records of dung beetles from district Sialkot, Punjab, Pakistan

Paper Details

Research Paper 01/08/2016
Views (312) Download (18)
current_issue_feature_image
publication_file

New faunal records of dung beetles from district Sialkot, Punjab, Pakistan

Ayesha Nasir, Mubashar Hussain, Samman Fatima, Nadia Noureen, Mobeen Ghazanfar
J. Bio. Env. Sci.9( 2), 122-128, August 2016.
Certificate: JBES 2016 [Generate Certificate]

Abstract

The study was carried out to explore the dung beetle fauna from district Sialkot, Punjab, Pakistan with emphasizes on the abundance and richness of species, distribution and description from cropland and pastures. Dung beetles specimens were sampled randomly from various parts District Sialkot. The specimens were collected by hand picking within the dung pat and by digging under and near the dung pats in natural pastures and croplands during 2014 – 2015. Specimens were subjected to identification by using standard morphological keys. Total 595 specimens were recorded from the study site belonging to 2 families, 5 tribes, 9 genera, and 25 species out of which four species Tiniocellus (Tiniocellus) modestus (Roth, 1851), Aphodius (Calaphodius) Moestus (Fabricius), Aphodius (Calamosternus) granarius (Linnaeus, 1767) and Onthophagus troglodyta (Wiedemann, 1823) were amongst new records from pakistan. The study emphasized on further exploration of fauna of Scarabaeidae family in the district Sialkot with special reference to ecological parameters.

VIEWS 36

Abbas M, Bai M, Yang X. 2015. Study on dung beetles (Coleoptera: carabaeidae: Scarabaeinae) of northern Pakistan with a new record from Pakistan. Entomotaxonomia 37(4), 257–267. DOI: 10.11680 /entomotax.2015044

Ahmed Z, Ratcliffe BC. 2015. New Records of Scarabaeoids (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae and Lucanidae) from Northern Pakistan. Entomological News125(1), 43-46. DOI: 10.3157 /021.125.0109

Ali SMS, Naeem M, Baig F, Shahzad A, Zia A. 2015. New records, distributional notes and species diversity of dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae) from Pothohar Plateau of Punjab, Pakistan. Journal of Entomology and Zoology Studies 3(3), 01-06.

Anderson JM, Coe MJ. 1994. Decomposition of elephant dung in an arid, tropical environment. Oecologia 14, 111–125.

Arrow GJ. 1931. The Fauna of British India including Ceylon and Burma, Col. Lamella III (Coprinae). Taylor and Francis, London 428.

Chandra K, Gupta D. 2013. Scarab beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeoidea) of Barnawapara Wildlife Sanctuary, Chhattisgarh, India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 5(12), 4660–4671 DOI: 10.11609/JoTT.o3251.4660-71

Estrada A, Estrada RC. 1991. Howler monkeys, dung beetles (Scarabaeidae) and seed dispersal: Ecological interactions in the tropical rainforest of Los tuxlas, Mexico. Journal of Tropical Ecology 7, 459–474.

Halffter G, Edmonds WD. 1982. The nesting behavior of dung beetles (Scarabaeinea) an ecological and evolutive approach. Mexico City, Instituto de Ecologia.

Hanski I, Cambefort, Y. 1991. Dung Beetle Ecology. Princeton University Press pp. 481.

Jessop L. 1986. Dung Beetles and Chafers, Coleoptera: Scarabaeoidae. Vol. 5, Part II. Hand books for the identification of British insects. Royal Entomological Society of London 53.

Kakkar N, Gupta SK. 2009. Temporal variations in dung beetle (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) assemblages in Kurukshetra, Haryana, India. J. Threatened Taxa 1(9), 481-483.

Larsen TH, Forsyth A. 2005. Trap spacing and transect design for dung beetle biodiversity studies. Biotropica 37, 322–325.

Larsen T. 2004. Dung beetle extinctions and ecological function. www.princeton.edu/ kremen/trond.htm.

Mittal IC. 1993. Natural manuring and soil conditioning by dung beetles. Tropical Ecology 34(2), 150–159.

Noureen N, Hussain M, Malik MF, Afsheen S. 2015a. New records of dung beetle fauna from Pakistan. J. Entomol. Zool. Stud 3(3), 428-430.

Noureen N, Hussain M, Malik MF. 2015b. Taxonomic account of dung beetles from Gujrat, Punjab (Pakistan). Bio. Env. Sci 7(3), 20-26.

Siddiqui H, Ahmed Z, Khatri I. 2014. Distributional Notes and New Records for the Dung Beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae) of Pakistan. Pak J Zool 46(2), 295-307.

Sowig P, Wassmer T. 1994. Resource partitioning in coprophagous beetles from sheep dung: phenology and microhabitat preferences. Zool. Jb. Syst 121, 171-192.

Venugopal KS, Thomas SK, Flemming AT. 2012. Diversity and community structure of dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeinae) associated with semi-urban fragmented agricultural land in the Malabar Coast in southern India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 4(7), 2685-2692.