Unveiling Dispersal Strength on a Metacommunity of Dung Beetles in a Heterogeneous Landscape

Dispersal strongly influences species distributional patterns in nature, structuring metacommunities through different processes on a regional scale. Dung beetlespecies are frequently habitat restricted, with their dispersal capacity through different habitats usually unknown, leading to consequences in species sorting or mass effect processes. Accordingly, we aim to describe the dispersal strength in a metacommunity of dung beetles in a heterogeneous landscape in southern Brazil. To classify the habitats, we evaluated the vegetational structure and conducted principal components analysis. To describe composition, richness, diversity and dissimilarity between dung beetle assemblages from distinct environments, we placed 36 sampling points along three distinct habitats: forest, woodland and grassland. We also supplemented 20 extra points at greater distances in a mark‐release research. To investigate the processes behind the metacommunity structure, we linked species relative abundance data to the environmental data from the sampling sites and spatial data. Thus, we built a spatial matrix weighted according to the dispersal hardness within and between environments, by using movement data of two Canthon species. Dung beetles dispersed mainly, but not exclusively, in their specific environments, on average 13 m a day. Species diversity was higher in woodland, followed by grassland, with forest being less diverse, although richness was equal in all three habitats. There was a great dissimilarity between assemblages from structurally distinct environments, predominantly led by turnover of species and balanced abundance variation. The dissimilarity within the metacommunity evidenced a strong niche influence, which, allied with low movement rates, infers a species sorting process influencing this metacommunity.