Taxonomic Checklist of the Dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae) of Sabah, Malaysia Borneo

Data Records

The data in this checklist resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 192 records.

1 extension data tables also exist. An extension record supplies extra information about a core record. The number of records in each extension data table is illustrated below.

This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.

Versions

The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.

How to cite

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

Yim MW, Ong XR, Chiew LY, Slade EM (2024). Taxonomic Checklist of the Dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae) of Sabah, Malaysia Borneo. Version 1.14. Asian School of the Environment. Checklist dataset. https://cloud.gbif.org/asia/resource?r=taxonomic_checklist_of_the_dung_beetles_in_sabah_malaysia&v=1.14

Rights

Researchers should respect the following rights statement:

The publisher and rights holder of this work is Asian School of the Environment. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC-BY-NC 4.0) License.

GBIF Registration

This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: c41029b7-b950-48f3-be69-60267043e020.  Asian School of the Environment publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by Participant Node Managers Committee.

Keywords

Checklist; Occurrence; Coleoptera; Scarabaeidae; Scarabaeinae; Dung Beetles; Sabah; Borneo; Malaysia; Derivedfromoccurrence

Contacts

Geographic Coverage

Sabah, Malaysia

Taxonomic Coverage

All Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae were identified to species level or in some cases subspecies level.

Temporal Coverage

Project Data

A major environmental and societal challenge facing most developing tropical countries is habitat degradation and the associated losses of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Many recent articles have documented the decline in insects worldwide and the impacts for the functioning of ecosystems. Over the past 15 years, we have been working in Southeast Asia to document the consequences of land-use changes for biodiversity, particularly for insects. An important tool in our studies has been the use of dung beetles (Scarabaeidae) as excellent bioindicators of habitat disturbance and land use change, and as a surrogate indicator taxon for the abundance of less easily monitored mammals, on whose dung they rely. These insects are also important for the healthy functioning of ecosystems, contributing to vital ecosystem services such as soil improvement, nutrient cycling, seed dispersal, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, and control of human and livestock parasites. However, answering questions about where and how insects are declining, and the effects of these declines on the functioning of the ecosystems can only be accomplished with accurate information about the taxonomy, distribution and natural history of species, which is lacking for many groups in SE Asia. In GBIF, SE Asian dung beetles are hugely under-represented, and many species are lacking complete information. Little is officially documented about their natural history and distributions, and the ability to identify the beetles relies on a small number of taxonomists. There is therefore an urgent need to mobilise existing data from papers, and specimens in museum and research collections, to geo-reference these, and to generate reference DNA barcode sequences for species. The aim of this project is to collate this data into an open access, user-friendly format to provide stakeholders in Southeast Asia with the capacity use dung beetles as bioindicators for both academic research and citizen science.

The personnel involved in the project:

Sampling Methods

Biodiversity data found within this taxonomic checklist were obtained from published taxonomic papers, ecological papers and published datasets containing occurrence records for dung beetles in Sabah, Malaysia. All raw extractable data related to taxonomy, occurrence and sampling effort from the sources were extracted into a single dataset (Bornean dung beetle dataset, Tropical Ecology and Entomology Lab) and was later refined into the occurrence dataset extension found here. The taxonomic checklist was then derived from the occurrence dataset. The data was entered according to the Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A) formats and controlled vocabulary was used. Data was cleaned using OpenRefine and Excel and validated through 'GBIF species-lookup tool' and 'GBIF data validator'.

Method step description:

1. Data extraction: Literature containing occurrence and taxonomic records from Sabah were first identified and data such as taxonomy and occurrence were mobilized, geo-referenced and transcribed into a dataset 'Bornean dung beetle database, Tropical Ecology & Entomology Lab'. Verbatim data were extracted initially and no data conversion or transformation occurred at this stage.
2. Data Management and Cleaning: Taxonomy data deriving from occurrence was then refined and extracted from the 'Bornean dung beetle database, Tropical Ecology & Entomology Lab' to create a taxonomic dataset and it was cleaned and managed strictly according to Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A) formats and using its controlled vocabulary. Scientific names were split into higher taxonomic classifications (Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Subfamily, Genus, Subgenus) with the aid of 'GBIF species-lookup tool' and verified individually. Missing information such as subgenus were sourced from taxonomic literature and inputted. Authorships were confirmed individually with focus on the application of parentheses. In cases where the species was described under a genus that is different from what was originally described, parenthesis (round brackets) were used around the author and year, thus indicating the existence of synonyms. After taxon rank and taxonomic status was determined, research was done to confirm the accepted names and original names of every species and was inputted accordingly. In cases where the record is a synonym, the accepted name of the species, if not present, was added into the checklist regardless of whether it is derived from the used sources. This is to ensure the taxonomic checklist consists of all the accepted names of all dung beetle species that exist in Sabah. Synonyms of all accepted names were only included if it derived from the used sources. Synonyms and accepted names were linked with unique identifiers (taxonID) using the acceptedNameUsageID and originalNameUsageID columns. Two taxon references were given in the columns, namePublishedin and nameAccordingTo. The former contains the reference in which the species name was first established while the later reference serves as the authoritative taxonomic reference for the record. The dataset was cleaned in Excel and later OpenRefine. The final dataset was then processed through the 'GBIF data validator' prior to publishing. All datasets are in the format .csv.
3. Extensions: A reference extension is also attached to this taxonomic checklist (core). The data in this extension includes all references of when the scientificName has been present in the reference. Each reference has a unique ID (taxonID) that can be linked back to each species in the taxonomic checklist.

Additional Metadata