Abstract:
Tswalu Kalahari Reserve is a private game reserve covering 1,020 km2 in the Northern
Cape, South Africa. It has been created from a number of reclaimed farms and restocked with large
indigenous mammals. Two surveys were conducted to inventory the dung beetle fauna (Coleoptera:
Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae) and determine their spatial patterns and food type associations. The
spatial survey used pig dungÐbaited pitfall traps to examine dung beetle distribution across three main
landscape types (plains, dunes, hills) comprising six principal vegetation communities. The food study
examined their relative associations with carrion and four different dung types within a single
vegetation community. A total of 70 species was recorded. Because the food association study was
spatially restricted and conducted under drought conditions, abundance and species richness (47
species) were much lower than in the spatial study (64 species), which was conducted after substantial
rainfall. Principal spatial differences in species abundance structure of assemblages were between
the sandy southwest plains and dunes; the sandy northern dune Þelds and plains; and the rocky
hills. Forty species analyzed in the food association study showed clear distributional biases to
carrion or the dung of elephant (monogastric herbivore), pig (omnivore), cattle and sheep
(ruminant herbivores), or pig and cattle. The results (1) show how dung beetle assemblage
structure is locally diversiÞed across the heterogeneous landscape of the reserve and (2) indicate
how the different dung types dropped by a diverse assemblage of indigenous mammals may
variously favor different species of dung beetles.
