Animal manure is a great source of nutrients for farm fields, and it can help build healthy soil. But there is a secret superhero who helps get the biggest bang for our buck when it comes to manure on farm fields – the dung beetle.

In Atlantic Canada, we have 20 species of dung beetles. These beetles are related to June Bugs but are much less annoying and play a very important role in farms that have livestock and in the wider ecosystem.

What makes dung beetles so helpful is their unique lifestyle and feeding habits. Adult beetles are filter feeders, removing the liquid portion of livestock dung (the manure, or poop) and feeding off the rich community of microbes present. The beetles then use the dung to nest and lay eggs. Some species nest within the dung (dwellers), others roll up dung balls to bury in another location (rollers), and some dig tunnels beneath the dung to nest (tunnelers). In Atlantic Canada, our dung beetles are classified as tunnelers and dwellers.

Building Healthy Soil

Through their nesting and tunnelling behaviours, dung beetles speed up the breakdown of dung. The dung then enters the soil to build soil health and add nutrients for crop growth. The tunnels also help reduce soil compaction, create soil pores, allow more water infiltration, and reduce erosion and standing water. All of these can lead to better crop growth and healthy soil.

Improving Animal Welfare

Dung beetles disrupt the development of the flies that lay their eggs in dung pats and therefore lower the fly populations. These flies bite livestock, causing irritation, reduced weight gain, and overall having a negative effect on animal welfare.

Fighting Against Climate Change

Dung beetles are also a tool in reducing our impact on climate change. Livestock manure can be a source of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. However, dung beetles interfere with methane production by decreasing the bacteria that produce methane that live in dung.

Carbon sequestration is another important tool agricultural soils can play in combatting climate change. Tunneling dung beetles pull the dung deeper into the soil for nesting. This can protect that carbon from loss, adding to the carbon sequestration of that soil.

Dung Beetles in the Living Lab – Nova Scotia

The Living Lab – Nova Scotia project, led by the Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture, is part of a network of 14 living labs across Canada under the Agricultural Climate Solutions – Living Labs program, funded by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. The Living Labs program brings together farmers, scientists, and other sector stakeholders to co-develop and test innovative technologies and on-farm practices to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and sequester carbon in real-world conditions.  Learn more about how farmers and researchers are working on-farm to develop sustainable solutions here.

As part of the Living Lab – Nova Scotia project, we are looking at the impacts of having a pasture and livestock on a field that was in vegetable production to increase its soil health. In these fields we are looking at the role dung beetles will play through a partnership with researchers at Dalhousie University.

To capture dung beetles, we set traps for them that involved a cup with its rim flush with the soil surface with mesh overtop holding a cheesecloth with fresh manure. The manure attracts the dung beetles and then they fall into the trap through the mesh. We can then count them and see if our management is increasing dung beetles, and therefore hopefully increasing the benefits to the farm field.

You can find out more about the Living Lab – Nova Scotia at our website nsfa-fane.ca/livinglabs/. We have information on the other management practices we are testing and developing as well as lots of great information resources.

Living Lab – Nova Scotia is part of the Agricultural Climate Solutions – Living Labs program, funded by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC).

Onthophagus nuchicornis – a small (approx. 6-8 mm), non-native but highly abundant tunnelling dung beetle (photo credit Matthew Dean).

A glass habitat showing dung beetle tunneling behaviour (photo credit Matthew Dean)