Effect of cattle silvopastoral systems relative to forests on the diversity, richness, and abundance of dung beetles

This comparison provides a supplementary vote count analysis for the article, “Meta-analysis shows overall benefits of cattle silvopastoral systems for biodiversity in fragmented forest landscapes,” submitted to the journal Ecological Applications. The meta-analysis examines the effect of silvopastoral systems (SPS) relative to treeless pastures and forests on three measures of biodiversity (species richness, abundance, and diversity) across seven taxa (birds, dung beetles, insects other than dung beetles, vertebrates, plants, soil bacteria and fungi, and soil macroinvertebrates). To do this, we calculated standardized effect sizes (log response ratios) that combine species richness, abundance, and diversity values reported in the 45 scientific documents included in our meta-analysis.

We use this ORKG comparison to conduct a simple vote count of SPS effects based on the values originally reported in these documents, focusing on the effect of SPS relative to forests on dung beetles (n=13 contributions, referred to as effect sizes in the meta-analysis). In 8 out of the 13 contributions, there was no significant difference in dung beetle biodiversity between SPS and forests. Two contributions reported a negative effect of SPS on dung beetle biodiversity. Three contributions lacked a corresponding comparative statistical analysis, indicated by “NA” in the “outcome” row. In contrast, the meta-analysis showed a significant decline in dung beetle biodiversity in SPS compared to forests, suggesting it produced a more conservative outcome.