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Large‐scale sampling of beetle communities in Laos shows that conversion of natural forests into plantations leads to a decline in family richness and abundance

Rapid economic development can pose a threat to the biodiversity of tropical countries. In Laos, this is manifested by the conversion of natural forests into plantations, even though this area is one of the biodiversity hotspots of Southeast Asia. Beetle communities can be good indicators of the imp...

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Autores principales: Chouangthavy, Bounsanong, Fourcade, Yoan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10318580/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37408619
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.10258
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author Chouangthavy, Bounsanong
Fourcade, Yoan
author_facet Chouangthavy, Bounsanong
Fourcade, Yoan
author_sort Chouangthavy, Bounsanong
collection PubMed
description Rapid economic development can pose a threat to the biodiversity of tropical countries. In Laos, this is manifested by the conversion of natural forests into plantations, even though this area is one of the biodiversity hotspots of Southeast Asia. Beetle communities can be good indicators of the impact of anthropogenic pressure on natural ecosystems. In this study, we analyzed for the first time a large‐scale inventory of Coleoptera to assess the ecological and anthropogenic drivers of beetle communities in Laos. We examined beetle communities (described at the family level) across the country, located in distinct habitat types, in order to understand the impact of the conversion of natural forest into plantations. We found that beetle abundance had declined in plantations compared to natural forests. At the same time, we observed fewer beetle families in plantations overall, but at the scale of sampling sites there was no difference in local richness compared to natural forests, suggesting a homogenization of beetle communities in anthropogenic habitats. Although results are certainly sensitive to our coarse classification of beetle specimens into families, the negative impact of the conversion of natural tropical forests into agriculture area can still be clearly demonstrated. Our findings highlight that it is possible to make use of unstructured large‐scale inventories to explore how beetle communities responds to landscape changes induced by human activities. We suggest that sampling beetle communities can be used as an ecological indicator to monitor anthropogenic impacts on tropical ecosystems.
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spelling pubmed-103185802023-07-05 Large‐scale sampling of beetle communities in Laos shows that conversion of natural forests into plantations leads to a decline in family richness and abundance Chouangthavy, Bounsanong Fourcade, Yoan Ecol Evol Research Articles Rapid economic development can pose a threat to the biodiversity of tropical countries. In Laos, this is manifested by the conversion of natural forests into plantations, even though this area is one of the biodiversity hotspots of Southeast Asia. Beetle communities can be good indicators of the impact of anthropogenic pressure on natural ecosystems. In this study, we analyzed for the first time a large‐scale inventory of Coleoptera to assess the ecological and anthropogenic drivers of beetle communities in Laos. We examined beetle communities (described at the family level) across the country, located in distinct habitat types, in order to understand the impact of the conversion of natural forest into plantations. We found that beetle abundance had declined in plantations compared to natural forests. At the same time, we observed fewer beetle families in plantations overall, but at the scale of sampling sites there was no difference in local richness compared to natural forests, suggesting a homogenization of beetle communities in anthropogenic habitats. Although results are certainly sensitive to our coarse classification of beetle specimens into families, the negative impact of the conversion of natural tropical forests into agriculture area can still be clearly demonstrated. Our findings highlight that it is possible to make use of unstructured large‐scale inventories to explore how beetle communities responds to landscape changes induced by human activities. We suggest that sampling beetle communities can be used as an ecological indicator to monitor anthropogenic impacts on tropical ecosystems. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2023-07-04 /pmc/articles/PMC10318580/ /pubmed/37408619 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.10258 Text en © 2023 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Articles
Chouangthavy, Bounsanong
Fourcade, Yoan
Large‐scale sampling of beetle communities in Laos shows that conversion of natural forests into plantations leads to a decline in family richness and abundance
title Large‐scale sampling of beetle communities in Laos shows that conversion of natural forests into plantations leads to a decline in family richness and abundance
title_full Large‐scale sampling of beetle communities in Laos shows that conversion of natural forests into plantations leads to a decline in family richness and abundance
title_fullStr Large‐scale sampling of beetle communities in Laos shows that conversion of natural forests into plantations leads to a decline in family richness and abundance
title_full_unstemmed Large‐scale sampling of beetle communities in Laos shows that conversion of natural forests into plantations leads to a decline in family richness and abundance
title_short Large‐scale sampling of beetle communities in Laos shows that conversion of natural forests into plantations leads to a decline in family richness and abundance
title_sort large‐scale sampling of beetle communities in laos shows that conversion of natural forests into plantations leads to a decline in family richness and abundance
topic Research Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10318580/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37408619
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.10258
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