Dung beetles do not profit from enhanced spatial heterogeneity in temperate production forests: A forest manipulation experiment

Abstract Central European forest management strategies promoting structurally homogeneous closed‐canopy forests have led to landscape‐level declines in biodiversity and ecosystem multifunctionality. Conservation‐targeted management programs aim at reintroducing structural heterogeneity into production forests; however, it is not well‐understood if species diversity and ecosystem functions generally profit from management promoting heterogeneity in forest structure. By removing and processing mammalian dung remains, dung beetles play an integral role in ecosystem functions in forests. In one of the largest manipulative forest experiments in Central Europe to date, we analysed the effects of enhanced structural heterogeneity in production forests, climate, and mammalian defecation on dung beetle diversity and dung removal rates at the local and landscape level. We assessed dung beetle assemblages and dung removal rates on 234 study patches (50 × 50 m) in 11 paired forest landscapes across a climatic gradient in Germany. Forest landscapes were managed either to conserve a homogeneous closed canopy or to create a heterogeneous forest structure with forest patches varying in canopy coverage and dead wood availability. We did not find that more heterogeneously managed forests had a higher dung beetle species diversity and dung removal rates. Canopy openings did not increase species turnover but decreased species diversity. Along the climate gradient, dung beetle average biomass and dung removal decreased with increasing temperature. Canopy openings in combination with higher temperatures negatively impacted all abundant dung beetle species, but especially the large species Anoplotrupes stercorosus , comprising >90% of the total dung beetle biomass. Synthesis and applications . Our results suggest that dung beetles do not profit from management increasing the structural heterogeneity of production forests. Future warming and openings in forest structure might have negative effects on dung beetles, and consequently on the ecosystem services they provide in production forests. Forest management should aim at preserving closed‐canopy forest stands, which would buffer temperature extremes and protect temperate dung beetle communities and their ecosystem functions.