The Effect of Anthropization on Sarcophagidae (Diptera: Calyptratae) Community Structure: An Assessment on Different Types of Habitats in the Humid Chaco Ecoregion of Argentina

Sarcophagidae (Diptera) are of great interest from a veterinary, medical, and forensic viewpoint, and are potential bioindicators for environmental impact assessments. In this study, we evaluated changes in abundance, species richness, and diversity of flesh flies in different habitat types in the H...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of medical entomology 2020-09, Vol.57 (5), p.1468-1479
Main Authors: Dufek, Matias I., Larrea, Dario D., Damborsky, Miryam P., Mulieri, Pablo R.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Abundance
Alfalfa
Animal behavior
Animals
anthropogenic impact
Argentina
Biodiversity
Bioindicators
Biological diversity
Biomonitoring
Cities
community composition
Community structure
Diptera
Ecological effects
Ecosystem
Environmental impact
Environmental impact assessment
Evaluation
Farms
flesh fly
Forensic science
Forests
Grassland
Habitats
Indicator species
Indicators (Biology)
Livestock farming
Male
Microclimate
Neotropical region
Parameters
POPULATION AND COMMUNITY ECOLOGY
Sarcophagidae
Sarcophagidae - physiology
Savannahs
Species diversity
Species richness
Urban agriculture
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Summary:Sarcophagidae (Diptera) are of great interest from a veterinary, medical, and forensic viewpoint, and are potential bioindicators for environmental impact assessments. In this study, we evaluated changes in abundance, species richness, and diversity of flesh flies in different habitat types in the Humid Chaco ecoregion of South America: 1) anthropized habitats: urban, cattle farm, and alfalfa crop, and 2) natural habitats: savanna and forest.We hypothesized that sarcophagid fly community parameters are affected by the anthropization and that spatial turnover will contribute more to the overall beta diversity than nestedness between habitats. In each habitat, samplings were conducted monthly from March 2015 to February 2016 in 25 sites, 5 per habitat, totaling 300 independent samples at the end of the study. We collected 5,790 Sarcophagidae (55 species). Community parameters of Sarcophagidae were evaluated and compared. The ecological effects of anthropization and habitat type were observed in the present study. As expected, our results showed the highest abundance, species richness, and diversity in the savanna and forest habitats (natural), whereas the lowest values were registered in the urban and alfalfa crop habitats, supporting the hypotheses of anthropization as the main driver of diversity loss. In addition, sarcophagid assemblages differed between all habitats and the overall dissimilarity was structured by spatial turnover. The main conclusion of this research is that flesh fly community structure is greatly affected by anthropization and habitat type, and this would be related to canopy cover and microclimate conditions of each environment. Graphical Abstract
ISSN:0022-2585
1938-2928
DOI:10.1093/jme/tjaa071