Land sharing vs. land sparing in the dry Caribbean lowlands: A dung beetles’ perspective

• We provide information on how harmonize food production with diversity conservation.
• Silvopastoral systems can support mixed dung beetle assemblages.
• Silvopastoral systems are a complementary strategy for the recovery of diversity.
• Silvopastoral systems combine the benefits of land-sharing and land-sparing.

Extensive cattle ranching is considered to be one of the major causes of environmental degradation particularly in tropical dry forest, one of the most threatened ecosystems worldwide. The transformation of extensive treeless pastures into intensive silvopastoral systems combining pastures, fodder shrubs, and trees has been promoted to rehabilitate degraded lands. This study was conducted to explore the influence of transforming extensive treeless cattle ranches into intensive silvopastoral systems and how this alters dung beetle diversity in a tropical dry forest located at Cesar river valley, Colombia. The study took place in three livestock farms, dung beetles were collected with baited pitfall traps in three land uses: forest, intensive silvopastoral systems and treeless pasture. A total of 5349 beetles belonging to 17 genera and 32 species, were collected. Forests had the highest species richness and abundance values, followed by intensive silvopastoral systems. The latter contained 61% of the native forest species and supported 36% more diversity than treeless pastures. Differences in diversity and composition were related mainly to canopy cover and soil cover. Conserving remaining dry forest fragments is crucial for preserving typical dry forest dung beetle assemblages in this region. Intensive silvopastoral systems complement the role of forests as reservoirs of biodiversity and contribute to the landscape-scale conservation of dung beetles. In this particular landscape and at the spatial scale that is relevant for dung beetles, intensive silvopastoral systems provide the benefits of both land sparing and land sharing.