Selective logging and plantation impacts on dung beetle abundances in Malaysian Borneo

If you wish to use these data, please contact grcerullo AT gmail DOT com. 

This dataset represents a geolocated and standardised dung beetle sampling effort spanning a logging and plantation gradient in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. Habitat types sampled in Jun-Aug 2022 include:

Primary forest (12 traps, 1 site)

Restored forest (once-logged forest subjected to liana cutting and enrichment planting) (24 traps, 2 sites)

Once-logged forest left naturally regenerating (24 traps, 2 sites)

Twice-logged forest (12 traps, 1 site)

Albizia falcataria plantations, grown on 12-yr rotation (36 traps, 3 sites)

Eucalyptus pellita plantations, grown on 6-yr rotations. (36 traps, 3 sites)

Efforts were made to sample across a chronosequence of harvesting and plantation ages. These data supplement historic dung beetle sampling efforts throughout the Ulu-Segama area, which will also be made openly available by Gianluca Cerullo (grcerullo AT gmail.com) on Zenodo prior to manuscript publication. 

Traps were located 200 m apart with sites > 1km apart, where possible. Pitfall traps were baited with human dung and left for 96 hrs, with beetles collected every 24hs and with traps rebaited after 48hrs. 

Dung beetles were identified by Gianluca Cerullo to species-level following the GBIF backbone. Reference collections are stored in the Entomology laboratory of UMS, in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. All beetles collected have been stored in ethanol and are being shipped to NTU in Singapore.

SHAPEFILES ARE ALSO PROVIDED FOR: 

SabahSoftwoodCompartments: the area, size and location of different plantation compartments within the Sabah Softwood tree plantation area. This represents the largest timber plantation in Sabah with Eucalyptus pellita and Albizia falcataria the main plantation species. 

SabahSoftwoodsPlantingYrs2022: The species planted in the plantation, plus the year of planting. These data were correct as of July 2022.  

DanumValley_PrimaryForest: Shows the boundaries of primary forest in Danum Valley. 

INFAPRO: Shows the location of areas logged and and then subjected to vine-cutting and strip-planting of native dipterocarp seedlings. 

COUPES: Shows the location and age of different logging coupes in the Yayasan Sabah logging concession. 

Further information on sampling protocol and the study area can be found in Chapter 3 (and the appropriate Appendices) of GC's thesis: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/items/617f455b-2eb5-4b14-903a-9e6bbd968886 (this section will be updated upon manuscript publication).