Dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae) of Serra do Divisor National Park, Brazil

Abstract

Abstract Serra do Divisor National Park (SDNP) is a protected area located in the western Brazilian Amazon that is threatened by a pending bill proposing to downgrade its status and to build a road that would effectively slice the park in half. The biodiversity of SDNP is poorly understood and no dung beetle inventories have been conducted within the park to date, despite being one of the most studied insect groups in the Neotropics. We sampled dung beetles with flight interception traps (FITs) and pitfall traps baited with human faeces to provide the first comprehensive dung beetle species list for SDNP. In total, we collected 4,909 dung beetle individuals belonging to 83 species. Of these, 18 were new species records for the state of Acre and two for Brazil. We also found species with Andean affinity and five species new to science. This study contributes to our understanding of dung beetle assemblages in the western Brazilian Amazon, showing that SDNP is a unique locality due to the proximity of the Andes, and highlighting that biodiversity in many Amazonian protected areas remains severely under sampled.