Frantisek Xaver Jiri Sladecek

University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice · Faculty of Science

The coexistence of ecologically similar species (i.e. species utilizing the same resource) is a major topic in ecology. Communities are assembled either through the biotic interactions of ecologically similar species, e.g. competition, or by the abiotic separation of species along gradients of environmental conditions. Here, we investigated the tem...

Temporal separations among species greatly enhance the species' coexistence, especially in insect communities inhabiting temporally unstable, yet resource-rich, ephemeral habitats like dung or carrion. The insect communities inhabiting ephemeral habitats consist of two components, the internal community dwelling within the substrate (mostly Coleopt...

We present the results of faunistic mapping of coprophagous beetles (Coleoptera: Geotrupidae, Scarabaeidae) in 14 grazed locations of the capital city of Prague during the years 2018–2019. During the survey, we recorded 40 species, eight of which are on the Czech red list, six species in the category of endangered (VU) and four in the category of n...

The conversion and degradation of natural habitats has caused global declines in terrestrial insect diversity. Conserving insect diversity has therefore gained increasing attention in international conservation agendas. Dung beetles (Geotrupidae, Scarabaeidae) are diverse and abundant coprophagous insects who remove dung and enhance nutrient cyclin...

Use of ivermectin in agro-ecosystems negatively affects non-target dung beetles, which provide keystone ecosystem services for pasture functioning. While the direct effects of ivermectin on dung beetles are at the center of scientific attention, its long-lasting effects on routinely treated pastures have not yet been studied on real communities and...

The diversity of dung beetles and the effect of antiparasitic drug administration were studied at 6 sites in southern part of Bohemian Forest during spring, summer and autumn 2018. In total 20 species of Scarabaeidae (n = 9430) and 4 species of Geotrupidae (n = 85) were collected by floating dung in water. The most abundant species were Melinopteru...

Herein, we report results of dung beetle survey conducted at 23 sites in the central and western part of the Šumava National Park. This was the second year of investigations aimed at assessing richness and distribution of dung beetles in the park and their response to antiparasitic medication in livestock. In each of the 23 pastures, all dung beetl...

The influence of early arriving species on the establishment and activity of later ones (the priority effect) is a key issue in ecological succession. Priority effects have been extensively studied in communities subject to autotrophic succession (plants, sessile animals), but only sporadically studied in communities subject to heterotrophic succes...

Investigation into the mechanisms responsible for community assembly (habitat filtering, niche differentiation) is essential for understanding the processes maintaining coexistence of species rich natural communities. Studies of such mechanisms have up to now been almost exclusively limited to communities of primary producers or consumers, and very...

Chemical cues, such as volatile organic compounds (VOCs), are often essential for insects to locate food. Relative to the volume of studies on the role of VOCs in insect-plant relationships, the role of VOCs emitted by dung and carrion in mediating the behavior of insect decomposers is understudied. Such relationships may provide a mechanistic unde...

The aim of this thesis was to investigate community assembly mechanisms driving the temporal patterns, succession and seasonality, in dung-inhabiting insects as a model community of insects inhabiting ephemeral habitats. I have shown that the succession of dung-inhabiting beetle and fly species follows the mechanisms of habitat filtering. This was...

We present a study of interactions in the highly competitive insect communities inhabiting the car-rion of small mammals. Via manipulation in a fully quantitative design, we delayed community development by excluding insect colonization in mouse and rat carcasses for 3 days, to study the role of early competitively dominant colonizers [burying beet...

Bacterial genes responsible for resistance to antibiotic agents (ARG) are spread from livestock to soil through application of manure, threatening environmental and human health. We investigated the mechanisms of ARG dissemination and persistence to disentangle i) the influence of nutrients and microorganisms on the soil tetracycline (TET) resistom...

Ecological classification of dung-inhabiting beetles and flies used in this study. Fun. group = functional group (saprophages = both adult and larvae saprophagous, omnivores = trophic shift between adult and larva (adult usually saprophagous, larva predatory), predators = both adult and larva predatory), dwellers = species whose larva develop in th...

Separation of niches in time playsan important role in species co-existence, especially in highly ephemeral habitats with severe competition such as carrion. Up to now, the majority of studies focusing on temporal trends of carrion-inhabiting organisms have been carried out semi-quantitatively, usingeither very few carcasses or pitfall traps. We th...

Poster from Royal Entomological Society Annual National Science Meeting, Celebrating 180 years of the RES journals Abstract: Temporal segregations play an important role in species coexistence. Carrion communities provide an excellent model for study of temporal patterns as they are ephemeral and highly competitive. Carrion communities have been st...

The dung beetle Oniticellus (Liatongus) boucomonti Balthasar, 1932 was described according to an unknown number of specimens labelled "Giufu-Shan, Szechuan" [= Jinfo Shan, ca. 29°04'N, 107°18'E, Chongqing province, China]. Balthasar evidently did not dissect these specimens and simply assumed that specimens with a small horn on vertex were males an...

The genus Epionitis Balthasar, 1942 and species Epionitis tarsatus Balthasar, 1942, were described from a single female from “Ost-Afrika, Ussambara” [= NE Tanzania] (Balthasar 1942). Earlier the same year, Janssens (1942) established the new genus Platyonitis for P. oberthueri Janssens, 1942 based on two specimens (holotype male and paratype female...