Landscape-scale surveys reveal patterns of floral visitation by species of Scarabaeidae (Coleoptera) in the Kruger National Park, South Africa

Abstract

Insect visitors were sampled from flowers of nine sympatric tree and shrub species in the Kruger National Park, South Africa, using a landscape-scale survey approach. Two species of Terminalia L., Terminalia prunioides Lawson and Terminalia sericea Burchell (Combretaceae) together comprised 53% of the flowering trees and shrubs sampled. Scarab beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) comprised a majority of visitors to flowers of the two Terminalia species (90% and 88%, respectively). Statistical comparisons indicate that both the composition and abundance of scarab floral visitors differ between T. prunioides and T. sericea, and between these species and sympatric flowering tree and shrub species. Individual species of Scarabaeidae show markedly different patterns of abundance: 42% were found on flowers of one tree species, 45% were found on flowers of two or three tree species, and the remaining four scarab species were common and occurred on four or more of the tree species sampled.

Keywords:

• Cetoniinae
• Scarabaeidae
• pollination
• insect–plant relationships
• African savannah

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge F. Venter and the South African National Parks (SANParks) for formal permission to conduct this study in the Kruger National Park. For assistance with fieldwork, we thank R. and A. Mawdsley from Cleveland State University, as well as V. Ndlovu, P. Khoza, T. Khoza, and A. Manganyi from the South African National Parks. We also thank G. Zambatis from the South African National Parks for her assistance with plant identifications. For comments on the manuscript, we thank four anonymous reviewers for their insights which greatly improved the paper.