Prairie Restoration and Dung Beetles

For my M.S. thesis, I was interested in how tallgrass prairie restoration management practices affected the dung beetle community and ecosystem functioning.

Specifically, I investigated how time since restoration, use of prescribed fire, and reintroduction of bison affected the dung beetle community. I evaluated the dung beetle community in terms of taxonomic diversity as well as functional diversity, and I quantified the ecosystem function of dung decomposition facilitated by dung beetles.

As expected, sites with reintroduced bison harbored a larger and more diverse dung beetle community than sites without bison. I discovered that the functional diversity approach to evaluating the dung beetle community provided a more accurate picture than traditional taxonomic diversity. The full results can be seen in the published manuscript.

This project was part of the ReFuGE Project and conducted at the Nachusa Grasslands in 2017-2018. Methods employed included pitfall trapping and a dung decomposition assay. This research was supported by the NSF (through the ReFuGE project), Northern Illinois University, The Friends of Nachusa Grasslands, and Prairie Biotic, Inc.