Effects of distance from devastated forests and topography on dung beetle assemblages in burned forests of East Kalimantan, Indonesia

Abstract

To evaluate the effects of distance from human living area and topography on dung beetle assemblages in burned natural forests, we set baited pitfall traps on 3 valleys and 3 ridges in a protected but burned forest along with the transect beginning from the border of the protected forest in East Kalimantan. Species richness and the logarithm of the number of beetles collected significantly decreased as sites approached the border. The Morisita’ s indices of similarity (C_λ) between each site and the control site set in the artificially devastated forest with fire outside the border significantly increased as sites approached the border. Thsese results suggest that more severe fire near human living areas degrades dung beetle diversity more significantly. All valley sites were considered as remnants of previous fires but the similarity index to the another control site set in the large unburned natural forest was apparently low at two valley sites near the border suggesting that the dung beetle diversity separated from the large unburned forest by burned ridges was severely degraded even if the forests were unburned.