Not exactly the poster child for cute animals, dung beetles now join the list of species affected by human-caused climate change.
Indeed, the long tentacles of climate change now extend all the way into the dreary lives of dung beetles in the Amazon rainforest, a new study suggests.
"With ongoing climate change, rising temperatures may push dung beetles beyond their physiological limits," said study lead author Kim Lea Holzmann of the University of Wurzburg in Germany, in an e-mail to USA TODAY.
The study was conducted in the Amazon region of Peru in 2022 and 2023. In the study, German researchers discovered that temperature is the decisive factor in the beetles' tolerable living conditions, and is far more important than food supply or soil moisture, for example.
Scientists say the insight is important: "Insects, including dung beetles, are fundamental components of ecosystems and form the base of many food webs," Holzmann said. "A loss in diversity could have cascading consequences on other groups, such as animals feeding on them."
