Some considerations on the terminology applied to dung beetle functional groups
Mattia Tonelli
Abstract
1. Dung beetles are an important group of insects that use excrement for feeding and reproductive purposes. The interest of the scientific community in dung beetles is highlighted by the increasing number of investigations that use them as the focal group. 2. In the last few years, several studies have used dung beetles as bioindicators and to study ‘biodiversity‐ecosystem functioning relationships’ using functional traits. One of the most widely used functional traits in dung beetle studies is their reproductive behaviour. 3. In order to evaluate the use of relevant terminology regarding dung beetle nesting behaviour I analysed 1143 articles published between 1969 and 2020. 4. The analysis brought to light the following four broad issues regarding dung beetle functional groups: (i) the interchangeable use of terms; (ii) overgeneralizations; (iii) the equating of nesting and trophic behaviour and (iv) misspellings. After reviewing these issues, I propose a solution.