Dung beetles increase plant growth: A meta-analysis

The ecosystem services provided by dung beetles are well-known and valued. Dung beetles bury dung for feeding and breeding, and it is generally thought that the process of burying dung increases nutrient uptake by plant roots, which promotes plant growth. Many studies have tested the effects of dung beetles on plant growth, but there has been no quantitative synthesis of these studies. Here we use a multi-level meta-analysis to estimate the average effect of dung beetles on plant growth and investigate factors that moderate this effect. We identified 28 publications that investigated dung beetle effects on plant growth. Of these, 24 contained the minimum quantitative data necessary to include in a meta-analysis. Overall, we found that dung beetles increased plant growth by 17 %; the 95 % CI for possible values for the true increase in plant growth that were most compatible with our data, given our statistical model, ranged from 1 to 35 %. We found evidence that the dung beetle–plant gro..., On 3rd November 2023, we conducted a literature search on the Scopus and Web of Science databases with the following search terms:
((\"dung beetle*\" OR scarabaei*) AND (herb* OR pasture OR plant* OR primary OR seedling*) AND (growth OR increase* OR product* OR yield))
From this literature search, we identified 26 studies (containing 677 study outcomes) that compared the difference in plant growth between areas with untouched dung (dung only) and areas with dung colonised solely by dung beetles (dung+beetles).
The reported results and experiment parameters from the 677 study outcomes were recorded in the meta_analysis_data.csv dataset., , # Dung beetles increase plant growth: a meta-analysis

We conducted a literature search to identify studies that compared the difference in plant growth between areas with untouched dung (dung only) and areas with dung colonised solely by dung beetles (dung+beetles).

From this literature search, we identified 26 studies (containing 677 study outcomes) and recorded the results and experiment parameters of each study outcome in the meta_analysis_data.csv file.

 

Details of the meta_analysis_data.csv file are as follows:

STUDYID: Unique identifier for each publication

YEAR: Year of publication

ACCESSION_ID: Unique identifier for each publication outcome

MULTIPLE_ENDPOINT_CLUSTERID: Whenever multiple plant traits were measured from the same plant at the same time, or when a single plant trait was measured from the same plant at different times, those outcomes received the same MULTIPLE_ENDPOINT_CLUSTERID

SHAREDCONTROL_CLUSTERID: Identifies the number of unique control groups within ...