Monitoring of dung beetle activity along Maryland's coastal plain

<b>Background/Question/Methods <p> </b>Coprophagous beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae and Geotrupidae) fulfill a unique niche in the ecosystems where they feed and reproduce. Their role in the removal and burial of dung has long been reported as beneficial to the environments they inhabit. Although the extent of their ecological services is not completely understood, there is ample evidence to suggest they are ideal indicator taxa for broad biodiversity studies. Here, we used 200 m linear transects and human-baited pitfall traps to examine dung beetle communities in seven forests of Maryland’s Coastal Plain. We set traps May 2014 to April 2015, once a week to determine species presence and abundance, range, and seasonality. Summer 2015, we examined the heterotrophic succession of dung beetles to dung in two of these forests (Janes Island State Park and Martinak State Park). Ten pitfall traps were randomly set once a month (May–August) in each site and beetles were collected on days 1, 3, 5, 7, 14, and 21 without replacement of dung. <p><b>Results/Conclusions <p> </b>We collected 22 species, including 6463 individuals, with Janes Island State Park (JISP) having the highest abundance (2705 individuals) and Martinak State Park (MSP) with the highest species richness (19 species). <i>Copris minutus</i> (Drury), <i>Geotrupes blackburnii</i> (Fabricius), and <i>Onthophagus hecate</i> (Panzer) were abundant in all forests. Two new records for Maryland, east of the Chesapeake Bay, include <i>Copris fricator</i> (Fabricius) and <i>O. subaeneus</i> (Palisot de Beauvois). When heterotrophic succession was examined in JISP, <i>O. hecate</i> was abundant throughout each 21 day collection period, and accounted for 68% of all beetles. In MSP most specimens were collected by day five. In both sites, no new species were captured with the longer collection period. Here we report on valuable natural history information, species range, and seasonality. These data will be used for further examination of community dynamics and conservation of locally rare species.