We have located links that may give you full text access.
Dung beetles increase plant growth: a meta-analysis.
Proceedings. Biological Sciences 2024 March 28
The ecosystem services provided by dung beetles are well known and valued. Dung beetles bury dung for feeding and breeding, and it is generally thought that the process of burying dung increases nutrient uptake by plant roots, which promotes plant growth. Many studies have tested the effects of dung beetles on plant growth, but there has been no quantitative synthesis of these studies. Here we use a multi-level meta-analysis to estimate the average effect of dung beetles on plant growth and investigate factors that moderate this effect. We identified 28 publications that investigated dung beetle effects on plant growth. Of these, 24 contained the minimum quantitative data necessary to include in a meta-analysis. Overall, we found that dung beetles increased plant growth by 17%; the 95% CI for possible values for the true increase in plant growth that were most compatible with our data, given our statistical model, ranged from 1% to 35%. We found evidence that the dung beetle-plant growth relationship is influenced by the plant measurement type and the number of beetles accessing the dung. However, beetles did not increase plant growth in all quantitative trials, as individual effect sizes ranged from -72% to 806%, suggesting important context-dependence in the provision of ecosystem services.
Full text links
Related Resources
Get seemless 1-tap access through your institution/university
For the best experience, use the Read mobile app
All material on this website is protected by copyright, Copyright © 1994-2024 by WebMD LLC.
This website also contains material copyrighted by 3rd parties.
By using this service, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy.
Your Privacy Choices
You can now claim free CME credits for this literature searchClaim now
Get seemless 1-tap access through your institution/university
For the best experience, use the Read mobile app