Species composition and functional guilds of dung beetles (Insecta: Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae) in different vegetational types in the Brazilian Shield-Chacoan Depression Border

The present study was carried out in Chapada dos Guimaraes (Brazilian Shield-Chacoan Depression Border), Mato Grosso, Brazil. In this paper we describe the species and composition of dung beetles in different vegetational environments in the Brazilian Shield-Chacoan Depression Border, to associate species present in each habitat to their known distributions, in order to determine whether this region is a biogeographic transition zone. We also update the first checklist of dung beetles from this region published over a century ago. We collected 17,635 individuals of dung beetles belonging to 98 species. Dung beetle fauna responded to the abrupt variation of altitude; in the upland savanna formations we observed species which are predominantly distributed in the Cerrado biogeographic province, whilst the lowland savanna formations were mainly constituted by species which are commonly distributed in the provinces of Chaco or Chaco + Cerrado. Forest formations harbor species which occur frequently in the Amazon sub-region. Due to several overlapped biotic components and also associated with the local endemism records, we regard the region as a biogeographic transition zone for dung beetles.