Edge effects on dung beetle assemblages in an Andean mosaic of forest and coffee plantations

• Autores: Villada Bedoya, Sebastián; Cultid Medina, Carlos Andrés; Escobar, Federico; Guevara, Roger; Zurita, Gustavo Andrés
• Año de publicación: 2016
• Idioma: inglés
• Tipo de recurso: artículo
• Materia: Andean cloud forest; Beta diversity; Effective number of species; Non-linear models; Sun-grown coffee; Colombia; Scarabaeinae
• Institución: Universidad Nacional de Misiones

Fil: Villada Bedoya, Sebastián. Universidad de Caldas. Grupo de Investigación en Biodiversidad y Recursos Naturales; Colombia.
Fil: Cultid Medina, Carlos Andrés. Universidad de Caldas. Grupo de Investigación en Biodiversidad y Recursos Naturales; Colombia.
Fil: Cultid Medina, Carlos Andrés. Universidad del Valle. Grupo de Investigación en Biología, Ecología y Manejo de Hormigas; Colombia.
Fil: Cultid Medina, Carlos Andrés. Wildlife Conservation Society; Colombia.
Fil: Cultid Medina, Carlos Andrés. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina.
Fil: Escobar, Federico. Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología. Instituto de Ecología A. C.; México.
Fil: Guevara, Roger. Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología. Instituto de Ecología A. C.; México.
Fil: Zurita, Gustavo Andrés. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico (Nordeste). Instituto de Biología Subtropical; Argentina.
Fil: Zurita, Gustavo Andrés. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico (Nordeste). Instituto de Biología Subtropical. Nodo Puerto Iguazú; Argentina.
Fil: Zurita, Gustavo Andrés. Universidad Nacional del Nordeste. Instituto de Biología Subtropical; Argentina.
Fil: Zurita, Gustavo Andrés. Universidad Nacional del Nordeste. Instituto de Biología Subtropical. Nodo Puerto Iguazú; Argentina.
In landscapes dominated by agriculture, conspicuous edges often occur between landscape elements. However, there is disagreement about the existence and intensity of edge effects, and information about species‐specific responses remains scarce. Studying such edge effects can help elucidate functional landscape connectivity and contribute to agricultural management. We, therefore, assessed whether sun‐grown coffee represents a barrier to dung beetles in an Andean agricultural landscape. We also evaluated whether the response to edge effects differs among species. We found that diversity and abundance tend to decrease from forest to sun‐grown coffee and that there are sharp increases in species turnover at the forest–coffee edge. We detected several different species‐specific responses to the forest–coffee edge, suggesting differences in the mobility of the species (or spillover) and in the degree of penetration that takes place from forest patches to sun‐grown coffee plantations. This study demonstrates that the sun‐grown coffee matrix constitutes a barrier to forest species and suggests that the forest–coffee ecotone is more complex than expected. Our results support the notion that the conservation value of native forest patches in agricultural scenarios depends on the functional connectivity of forest units in the landscape to maximize the opportunities species have to disperse through the agricultural matrix.