Dung beetles specimens along aridity gradients at the border of three deserts: Chihuahua (Mexico), Kalahari (South Africa) and Sahara (Morocco), 2013-2015.

Indradatta deCastro1, Cristina Ronquillo2, Francisco Sánchez-Piñero3, Joaquín Hortal4, Mercedes París4

1 Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (MNCN-CSIC), , Spain; 2 Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (MNCN-CSIC), Madrid, Spain; 3 Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain; 4 Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales  (MNCN-CSIC), Madrid, Spain

Corresponding author(s): Indradatta deCastro (indradatta@wanadoo.fr), Cristina Ronquillo (cristinaronquillo@mncn.csic.es)

Received {date}; Revised {date}; Accepted {date}; Published {date}

Citation: Combination of authors, year of data paper publication (in parentheses), Title, Journal Name, Volume, Issue number (in parentheses), and doi of the data paper.

Resource Citation

deCastro I (2020): Dung beetles specimens along aridity gradients at the border of three deserts: Chihuahua (Mexico), Kalahari (South Africa) and Sahara (Morocco), 2013-2015.. v1.4. Spanish National Museum of Natural Sciences (CSIC). Dataset/Occurrence. https://doi.org/10.15470/pjxmep https://doi.org/10.15470/pjxmep

Abstract

The dataset comprises a subset of the information recorded in the thesis “Dung beetle traits: a conceptual, experimental and biogeographical approach”. It contains 2086 occurrences of Scarabaeidae species recorded from Mexico, Morocco and South Africa and 4 occurrences of Trogidae family from Morocco. Dung beetles specimens were surveyed along aridity gradients at the border of three deserts: Chihuahua (Mexico), Kalahari (South Africa) and Sahara (Morocco). The sampling campaigns took place before the rainy season (September 2013-14 Sahara, November 2014 Kalahari) and after the rainy season (April 2013-2014 Sahara, May 2014 Sahara and September 2015 Chihuahua). The National Spanish Museum of Sciences kept the specimens preserved at the 'Entomología' collection. Those from South Africa and Mexico were dried. A wing and elytra were extracted and pinned. Specimens from Morocco were preserved in alcohol.

Keywords: Occurrence, Specimen

General description

Additional information: Specimens from South Africa and Mexico were dried. A wing and elytra were extracted and pinned. Specimens from Morocco were preserved in alcohol.

Project details

Project title: SCARPO - Desentrañando los determinantes geográficos y evolutivos de la diversidad de coleópteros coprógafos del Paleártico Occidental.
Personnel: Joaquín Hortal
Funding: "SCARPO - Desentrañando los determinantes geográficos y evolutivos de la diversidad de coleópteros coprógafos del Paleártico Occidental (CGL2011-29317), and the associated FPI grant BES-2012-054353, funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad".

Data published through GBIF: https://ipt.gbif.es/resource?r=dung_beetles

Taxonomic coverage

General taxonomic coverage description: Occurrences described in this dataset pertain to Scarabaeidae family and comprise 50 different genus of dung beetles. 5 occurrences were identified to family level, 59 to genus level and 2022 to species level. This dataset also contains 4 records of Trogidae family identified to species level.
Taxonomic ranks
Class: Insecta
Order: Coleoptera
Family: Scarabaeidae

Spatial coverage

General spatial coverage: 30 different locations were surveyed from 3 different countries. 1842 occurrences from Sahara desert Morocco, 48 from Chihuhua desert in Mexico and 200 from Kalahari desert in South Africa.
Coordinates: 90°0'0''S and 90°0'0''N Latitude; 180°0'0''W and 180°0'0''E Longitude 

Temporal coverage: April 10, 2013 - September 12, 2015

Natural collections description

Parent collection identifier: MNCN
Collection name: Colección de entomología, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales
Collection identifier: 835bf26e-f762-11e1-a439-00145eb45e9a
Specimen preservation method: Alcohol
Specimen preservation method: Dried

Methods

Method step description: We surveyed 10 sampling sites along the Moroccan road N17 from the Sahara towards the Mediterranean, separated by an interval of around 40 km. Sampling and beetle collection were carried out under research permits Reference Numbers 01/2013 HCEFLCD/DLCDPN/DPRN/CFF and 01/2014 HCEFLCD/DLCDPN/DPRN/CFF issued by the Haut Commisariat aux Eaux et Forêts et à Lutte Contre la Désertification (Morocco). All sampling sites were placed at least 100m away from the road margin.
Study extent description: The study area comprises the border of three deserts: Chihuahua (Mexico), Kalahari (South Africa) and Sahara (Morocco). In each of the deserts a transect 400km long was designed to capture the variability of a severe aridity gradient from 300mm to 100mm of total annual rainfall. Thus, the driest areas had scarce vegetation (<5cm high) and very low density (<1 individual per 1m²) and the wettest areas had shruby to sparse savanna ecosystems (small trees of various species, including Acacia in the Kalahari) or low intensity agroecosystems (specially in the wet areas of the Sahara desert). There was presence of livestock along the transects of the three deserts varying from cattle in the wettest study areas to lots of sheep/goats and some donkeys in the driest study areas of the three deserts. Even some dromedary at the Sahara desert.
For more details on the Saharan study area see https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.5210.
Sampling description: Dung beetles were sampled during four campaigns held in two consecutive years: two in the wet season (April 2013 and 2014) and two in the dry season (September 2013 and 2014). In each campaign we surveyed 10 sampling sites along the Moroccan road N17 from the Sahara towards the Mediterranean, separated by an interval of around 40 km. All sampling sites were placed at least 100m away from the road margin.

Datasets

Dataset description
Object name: Darwin Core Archive Dung beetles specimens along aridity gradients at the border of three deserts: Chihuahua (Mexico), Kalahari (South Africa) and Sahara (Morocco), 2013-2015.
Character encoding: UTF-8
Format name: Darwin Core Archive format
Format version: 1.0
Distribution: https://ipt.gbif.es/archive.do?r=dung_beetles
Publication date of data: 2020-05-21
Language: English
Licences of use: Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC-BY-NC) 4.0 License

Metadata language: English
Date of metadata creation: 2020-03-25
Hierarchy level: Dataset

References
DeCastro Arrazola, Indradatta. Dung beetle traits: a conceptual, experimental and biogeographical approach. Granada: Universidad de Granada, 2018. [http://hdl.handle.net/10481/54301]  http://hdl.handle.net/10481/54301
deCastro-Arrazola I, Hortal J, Moretti M, Sánchez-Piñero F. 2018. Spatial and temporal variations of aridity shape dung beetle assemblages towards the Sahara desert. PeerJ 6:e5210 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.5210