in Sri Lanka - Ministry of Environment

Forest dwelling dung beetles may benefit from good forest cover and increased connectivitybetween forest fragments. Sustainable management of modified habitats to increase habitatcomplexity, shade and soil quality and availability of dung resources through the presence ofmammals can favour healthy dung beetle communities. Overuse of pesticides and fertilizer isa known threat to dung beetles elsewhere. Use of pesticides and other chemicals in intenselycultivated areas adjoining large forests and fragments may have detrimental effects.Community education efforts can greatly contribute to the sustainable management of humanmodified areas. Importance of dung beetles and their ecological services, specifically their rolein enhancing soil fertility are not well known and understood by the local communities. Wantondestruction of dung beetles is an issue infrequently discussed. Catharsius molossus is oftenburned in rural areas due to a mythological belief among tea plantations workers.Collecting and killing of Scarabaeus gangaticus was observed in the arid agricultural areas.Awareness development can reduce negative impacts of human activities and facilitate morebiodiversity friendly anthropogenic habitats.Research needs and recommendationsThe “imbalance in the number of collections, experts, and species” is a common problem facedby many countries in the Asian region including Sri Lanka. Many Sri Lankan invertebratesare less known, revised taxonomic keys are rarely available, and reference collections withtype specimens are primarily found in European museums. On the Indian subcontinent, thetaxonomy of most invertebrate groups has not been revised since the publication of the Fauna ofBritish India series in the mid-1900s. Constraints of limited access to reference specimens andlack of taxonomic expertise encountered at the initial stages of the recent dung beetle surveywere tackled through resources and collaboration provided by the Oxford University Museumof Natural History. The completion of the dung beetle checklist for Sri Lanka, establishingthe status of species and description of new species will require a greater sampling effortconsidering geographical, microhabitat, seasonal and food habit variations expressed by dungbeetles. Further, more sampling is required to verify if the absence of previously recordedspecies. All endemic species recorded in the present study were found in the wet zone, and mostwere rare. This could be attributed either to natural rarity or to endemics being more vulnerableto disturbances in this landscape. Clear morphological variations were observed within certainspecies indicating the need for in depth taxonomic revision of Scarabaeinae dung beetles.Shifting distribution of species ranges were observed by comparing current records with thepublished historical records, and the locations of specimens from multiple museums. Theseshould be interpreted in the light of changing natural habitats, climate change and resourceavailability. The recent inclusion of dung beetles in the global IUCN database marked a turningpoint in dung beetles conservation. Globally, more than 12% of the dung beetle species arethreatened, and most have a restricted range, or are rare forest-dwelling species. The impactsof deforestation and land use change are heavily impinging on faunal communities. Recentstudies conducted in Sri Lanka using dung beetles as an indicator of habitat change highlightsthe importance of assessing faunal community and functional responses to habitat disturbance.441