DOI: 10.5061/dryad.djh9w0wdx
title: Data from: Who prefers the dark? Daily activity of dung beetles from an Amazonian region

description: Temporal niche partitioning is an important mechanism for minimizing
 interspecific competition and promoting species coexistence in complex
 ecosystems. This allows sympatric competing species to exploit resources
 at different times of the day, minimizing direct competition, and provides
 insights into the evolutionary processes of circadian distribution of
 communities, resource availability, and intra- and interspecific
 competitive pressure. In this study, we examined how diel activity
 patterns (nocturnal and diurnal periods) of dung beetle assemblages
 (species richness, abundance, and assemblage structure) within a conserved
 region of Amazonian forest. To achieve this, we sampled dung beetles using
 pitfall traps baited with human feces during the day and night in a
 conserved Amazonian forest. Overall, we sampled a total of 430 individuals
 and 32 species. While dung beetle species richness and abundance did not
 differ significantly between day and night, a pronounced shift in species
 composition between dial activity patterns was observed, indicating clear
 temporal segregation of dung beetle species. Five species were classified
 as diurnal, four species were considered nocturnal, and one species was an
 activity period generalist. Our findings highlight the importance of
 temporal dynamics as drivers of dung beetle species distributions in
 tropical forests, directly influencing resource partitioning and promoting
 behavioral adaptations that facilitate species coexistence in the Amazon
 rainforest.
description: <strong>Study area</strong>
 Fieldwork was carried out in June 2022 at the RAPELD module of
 the Instituto de Biodiversidade e Conservação da Amazônia (IBCAM), near
 Presidente Figueiredo, Amazonas, Brazil (1°45'S, 60°08'W). The
 site is a conserved terra-firme forest with minimal human disturbance and
 a tropical monsoon climate according to the Köppen
 classification. <strong>Data
 collection</strong> We performed one 24-h
 sampling cycle using 24 baited pitfall traps — 12 active during daytime
 (06:00–18:00) and 12 during nighttime (18:00–06:00). Traps were arranged
 as 12 sampling points (pairs ~5 m apart) spaced ≥ 100 m to standardize
 effort, and baited with ≈25 g fresh human feces (an appropriate sampling
 method to estimate dung beetle assemblages, see Mora-Aguilar et al., 2023
 and Salomão et al., 2021). Specimens were identified to species or
 morphospecies using regional keys and the INPA entomological collection
 (Vaz-de-Mello et al. 2011). <strong>Data
 analysis</strong> Sample completeness was
 assessed with sample-coverage estimators (iNEXT; Chao et al., 2014) in R
 4.3.0 (R Core Team, 2023). The effect of diurnal and nocturnal periods on
 species richness and abundancewase tested using generalized linear models
 (GLMs) with error families chosen after diagnostic checks (Crawley, 2013).
 Each sampling point was considered a replicate. Species
 were classified as diurnal/nocturnal/generalist using a multinomial
 classification approach (Chazdon et al., 2011). The effect of diurnal and
 nocturnal periods on dung beetle assemblage structure was tested with
 permutation analysis of variance (PERMANOVA), and its multivariate
 dispersionwase tested with permutational multivariate analysis of
 dispersion (PERMDISP) (Anderson, 2001). To visualize how diurnal and
 nocturnal dung beetle assemblages were segregated, non-variate
 multidimensional scaling (NMDS) was used (Anderson & Willis,
 2003). PERMANOVA, PERMDISP, and NMDS were performed based on the
 Bray-Curtis similarity index.
description: # Data from: Who prefers the dark? Daily activity of dung beetles from an
 Amazonian region Dataset DOI:
 [10.5061/dryad.djh9w0wdx](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.djh9w0wdx) ##
 Description of the data and file structure This database contains the
 supplementary material, the raw data used to analyse the data of the
 manuscript, as well as the statistics. In this dryad file, we will clarify
 the meaning of each data point and table. ### Files and variables ####
 File: Supplementary_material_Article_Day_Night.xlsx **Description:**  In
 the following lines, we have explained column data that are not
 self-explanatory in the tables of this Dryad file. In the 'Data'
 table: ##### Variables * Species : Scientific name or identifier of the
 dung beetle species. * Diel_activity : Diel activity period: diurnal
 (active during the day) or nocturnal (active during the night). *
 Body_Size_mm : Measured body size of individuals in millimeters. *
 Nesting_behaviour : Type of nesting behavior: Tunneler, Roller, or
 Dweller. * Binary_Period : Binary indicator of activity period: 1 =
 diurnal, 0 = nocturnal. * Sample : Sample identifier from which the data
 were collected. * Specie_Mean_Body_Size : Mean body size (mm) of
 individuals from the same species. Missthe ing data: NA In
 'Metadata' table: ##### Variables * Variable : Variable
 presentthe ed in the 'Data' table. * Description : Detailed
 information of each variable. In 'Clam_Results' table: #####
 Variables * Species : Scientific name or identifier of the dung beetle
 species. * Total_Diurnal : Total abundance of dung beetle species recorded
 during the diurnal period. * Total_Nocturnal : Total abundance of dung
 beetle species recorded during the nocturnal period.  * Classes
 : Classification of species according to diel activity period. ####
 Code/software * For table 'Clam_Results', RStudio software
 version 4.3.3 was used. #### Access information Other publicly accessible
 locations of the data: * None Data was derived from the following sources:
 * None