"Without this help from dung beetles the daily dose of 5000 tonnes would soon swamp the plains." "Dung beetles are the missing group out there," Moller says of Aotearoa’s farming ecosystems, "because we brought all these herbivores over and we didn’t bring with them the things that normally disperse their dung — or bury their dung." The tidy product of dung beetles’ endeavours. New Zealand does have native dung beetles, but they are forest dwellers. Dung beetles can cut off some of those threats at their source, in the paddocks themselves.

Source: Otago Daily Times August 22, 2020 16:30 UTC