ARPHA Preprints, doi: 10.3897/arphapreprints.e162936
Seasonal distribution of scarabs (Insecta: Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) of a tropical dry deciduous forest in central India
expand article infoSuvarna Khadakkar‡, Ashish D. Tiple§, Ashish Kumar Jangid|, Arun Khurad
‡ Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India§ Assistant Professor and Head, Wardha, India| Wildlife Institute of india, Dehradun, India¶ RTM Nagpur University, Nagpur, India

Corresponding author: Suvarna Khadakkar ( suvarnask17@gmail.com )

© Suvarna Khadakkar, Ashish Tiple, Ashish Kumar Jangid, Arun Khurad.
This is an open access preprint distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation: Khadakkar S, Tiple AD, Kumar Jangid A, Khurad A (2025) Seasonal distribution of scarabs (Insecta: Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) of a tropical dry deciduous forest in central India. ARPHA Preprints. https://doi.org/10.3897/arphapreprints.e162936
Open Access
Abstract
Studies on scarab (Insecta: Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) seasonality from central Indian province are sparse, particularly from tropical dry deciduous forests. Our study of seasonal distribution of scarabs in Bor forest, a tropical dry deciduous forest of central India, led to a collection of 72 species belonging to 35 genera under seven subfamilies namely, Aphodiinae, Cetoniinae, Dynastinae, Melolonthinae, Rutelinae, Scarabaeinae and Orphnini. Subfamily Scarabaeinae is found to be the most speciose with 36 species under 14 genera. Genus Onthophagus is the most speciose genus with 15 species. Subfamily Orphninae found to be the least diverse with a single species. Season and weather parameters shaped the scarab beetle assemblages in the tropical dry deciduous Bor forest. Scarab species richness is found to be positively and significantly related to the mean temperature (β=0.03±0.01 SE, p<0.05) and to the mean precipitation (β=0.03±0.01 SE, p<0.05). Constrained by logistics, we could not identify optimum temperature or precipitation values on which the scarab species richness can be highest for both the fitter models
Keywords
scarabs, dung beetles, phytophagous, seasonal prevalence, coprophagous