South Dakota State University Open PRAIRIE: Open Public Research Access Institutional Repository and Information Exchange Theses and Dissertations 2017 The aC ttle Dung Arthropod Community in Eastern South Dakota: Their oloniC zation, Impact on Degradation, and Response to Rangeland Management Jacob Pecenka South Dakota State University Follow this and additional works at: http://openprairie.sdstate.edu/etd Part of the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Commons, and the Entomology Commons Recommended Citation Pecenka, Jacob, "The aC ttle Dung Arthropod Community in Eastern South Dakota: Their oC lonization, Impact on Degradation, and Response to Rangeland Management" (2017). Theses and Dissertations. 1181. http://openprairie.sdstate.edu/etd/1181 This Thesis - Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by Open PRAIRIE: Open Public Research Access Institutional Repository and Information Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Open PRAIRIE: Open Public Research Access Institutional Repository and Information Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE CATTLE DUNG ARTHROPOD COMMUNITY IN EASTERN SOUTH DAKOTA: THEIR COLONIZATION, IMPACT ON DEGRADATION, AND RESPONSE TO RANGELAND MANAGEMENT. BY JACOB PECENKA A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Science Major in Biological Sciences South Dakota State University 2017 iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work could not have been completed without the help and support of numerous people throughout my studies at South Dakota State University. It is their time and assistance that allowed the studies, research, and analysis that I undertook to be possible. Committee members Dr. Jonathan Lundgren, Dr. Lora Perkins, and Dr. Alexander Smart have been a source of guidance throughout the data collection and manuscript synthesis processes. I would especially like to thank Dr. Lundgren for his mentorship along this process. The education he has provided outside the classroom in how to become a successful entomologist and researcher have been invaluable during this process and will continue to be so throughout my professional career. The opportunities Dr. Lundgren and the Ecdysis Foundation has provided me have allowed this vast undertaking to be possible and enabled creativity and passion to be a part of this research. Many long days were spent in the pasture among the cows, digging through dung pats and collecting insects. Very often I came back to the lab dirty and tired only to begin the process of extracting, sorting and identifying the nearly 200,000 arthropod specimens collected throughout this study. I would like to thank Michael Bredeson, Claire LaCanne, Dakotah Grosz, Kae Januschka, Nathan Koens, Marti La Vallie, Amy Lieferman, Abigail Martens, Alexander Nikolas, Cassandra Pecenka, Greta Schen, and Kassidy Weathers for assistance in collecting and sorting field specimens. Insect identification assistance was greatly appreciated and was provided by Mark Longfellow, Chrissy Mogren, and Kelton Welch. I also wish to thank the Ecdysis Foundation and NC-SARE for funding this research. iv Finally, I want to acknowledge all the ranchers who participated in this study and allowed me to use their operations as sampling sites. I took what I learned from the ranchers that I worked with and applied it to my research. Getting to interact with them allowed me to see the importance of sharing information the essential line of communication needed when conducting agricultural research. I hope that the research conclusions included in this thesis will be a resource to ranchers in South Dakota and provide a greater knowledge of the little beetles doing the dirty work. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................... vii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION OF CATTLE MANAGEMENT ON RANGELANDS AND THE DUNG ARTHROPOD COMMUNITY ............................... 1 References Cited ........................................................................................................... 17 CHAPTER TWO: DEGRADATION OF CATTLE PATS IN EASTERN SOUTH DAKOTA AND IMPORTANCE OF DUNG BEETLES (SCARABAEIDAE) TO ADDITIONAL ARTHROPOD COLONIZATION .... .................................................... 32 Abstract ......................................................................................................................... 32 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 33 Materials and Methods .................................................................................................. 36 Results ........................................................................................................................... 39 Discussion ..................................................................................................................... 44 References Cited ........................................................................................................... 49 Tables ............................................................................................................................ 55 Figures ........................................................................................................................... 58 CHAPTER THREE: EFFECT OF CATTLE MANAGEMENT ON DUNG ARTHROPOD COMMUNITY STRUCTURE ................................................................ 63 Abstract ......................................................................................................................... 63 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 64 Materials and Methods .................................................................................................. 67 Results ........................................................................................................................... 70 Discussion ..................................................................................................................... 74 References Cited ........................................................................................................... 79 Tables ............................................................................................................................ 88 Figures ........................................................................................................................... 97 CHAPTER FOUR: THE INFLUENCE OF CATTLE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS ON PEST MAGGOT POPULATIONS IN SOUTH DAKOTA ........................................... 101 Abstract ....................................................................................................................... 101 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 102 vi Materials and Methods ................................................................................................ 105 Results ......................................................................................................................... 108 Discussion ................................................................................................................... 111 References Cited ......................................................................................................... 115 Tables .......................................................................................................................... 123 Figures ......................................................................................................................... 124 vii ABSTRACT THE CATTLE DUNG ARTHROPOD COMMUNITY IN EASTERN SOUTH DAKOTA: THEIR COLONIZATION, IMPACT ON DEGRADATION, AND RESPONSE TO RANGELAND MANAGEMENT. JACOB PECENKA 2017 Cattle grazing operations are an important industry throughout the world and a vital component of the economy of the Northern Great Plains. Rangeland management is important to ensure that cattle grazing remains not only profitable but also environmentally sustainable. Conventionally managed rangeland systems that practice continuous grazing and repeated applications of chemicals such as avermectins pose a risk to the continuing productivity of rangelands. These practices have ecological consequences, primarily to the arthropod community that inhabits cattle dung pats. This diverse community works together to recycle dung pats and make the nutrients in dung accessible to the surrounding plant community, an essential role in the functionality of rangelands. The research within this thesis describes the influence of management systems on the dung arthropod community across eastern South Dakota. This community is represented by 172 morphospecies represented by 14 orders of arthropods that inhabit dung pats. We have gained an understanding of the community’s response to dung pat age and their contribution to the degradation of dung within pastures. A dung arthropod community with lower abundance, species richness and diversity will result in a dung pat takings 33-38 days longer to breakdown than pats accessed by an intact arthropod community. The management system strongly influenced the arthropod community and viii use of continuous grazing and avermectin parasiticides resulted in a disruption of arthropods living in dung. These conventional