Using radio telemetry to study dispersal of the beetle Osmoderma eremita, an inhabitant of tree hollows

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Abstract

This paper describes a radio-tracking study of Osmoderma eremita, a large Scarabaeid beetle, living in hollow trees. The study seems to be the first in which radio telemetry has been used with a flying insect in the field. Some 74 adult beetles were tagged with radio transmitters weighing 0.48–0.52 g and having a nominal battery life of 12–20 days. Transmissions were detected at ranges of up to 330 m, with 50–100 m obtained routinely. Contact was lost with 71% of the females and 20% of the males before the end of the nominal lifetime of the transmitter's battery, probably because the transmitter ceased to function. Radio telemetry proved effective in this study and gave dispersal ranges and rates that were consistent with those from a concurrent mark-recapture study in the same area. However, further development of the technique is desirable. The antennas need to be more flexible and the transmitters smaller and lighter. Nevertheless, even the current form of the technique may be suitable for studying short-range dispersal in other large-bodied flight-capable insects.

Introduction

Dispersal plays an important role in the population biology of insects and there is a growing demand from ecologists for empirical data on its occurrence and form (Doak and Mills, 1994, Thomas and Hanski, 1997, Nilsson et al., 2001). A variety of methods are available for studying insect movement, of which perhaps the most successful are mark–recapture (Englund, 1993, Hanski et al., 1994, Kindvall, 1999), harmonic direction finding (Mascanzoni and Wallin, 1986) and harmonic radar (Riley et al., 1996, Riley and Smith, 2002). The effectiveness of each method for a particular study depends on the biology of the species and the structure of its habitat—the topography, vegetation density, etc. A limitation of mark–recapture is that the individuals are located only at specific and usually infrequent points along their life-track and long-range movements are difficult to detect at all (Koenig et al., 1996). Harmonic direction finding, which has been used to study both dispersal (Mascanzoni and Wallin, 1986, Wallin and Ekbom, 1988) and foraging (Wallin, 1991) by flightless carabid beetles and the effect of habitat structure on moth and butterfly movements (Roland et al., 1996), allows tagged insects to be relocated more easily so that changes in location from day to day can be characterized. With harmonic radar, which has been used to study foraging in bees and bumblebees (Riley et al., 1996, Osborne et al., 1999, Riley and Osborne, 2001) and wind compensation by bumblebees (Riley et al., 1999), it is possible to record the flight paths of insects for several hundred metres in open habitats. However, this last technique cannot be used where dense vegetation (trees, bushes, hedges, etc.) predominates because the insect will repeatedly be hidden in radar shadows. In these habitats, radio telemetry may be the most suitable technique for investigating movement because the longer wavelength signals are more able to penetrate dense vegetation. A second advantage of telemetry is that several individuals can be followed at the same time, by using a unique signal for each.

Radio transmitters have been extensively used to follow the movements of larger animals (Mech, 1983, Kenward, 1993). However, it is only during the last decade that the size of the transmitters have become so small that they could be used on invertebrates. Telemetry has been used on species of crabs (Gherardi and Vannini, 1989), spiders (Janowski-Bell and Horner, 1999) and flightless insects (Hayashi and Nakane, 1989, Riecken and Ries, 1992, Riecken and Raths, 1996, Lorch and Gwynne, 2000), all of which live in the water or on the ground. Here, we discuss our use of radio telemetry for studying dispersal in the beetle Osmoderma eremita which mainly flies over short distances. Although Kutsch (2002), describes very short range radio transmissions of muscle potentials in locusts flying in the laboratory, to the best of our knowledge, our experiments are the first in which radio telemetry has been used with a flying insect in the field. In both our own and the studies of Riecken and Raths (1996), the transmitter tags are used to locate the insects at infrequent intervals, as in the earlier harmonic direction-finder studies. Tracking the beetles as they fly around their habitats, as has been achieved in the harmonic-radar observations of bees, would require a more sophisticated receiver system capable of position fixing by triangulation and has not so far been attempted.

Section snippets

Study species

O. eremita is a Scarabaeid beetle ≈30 mm long (Table 1) that lives in old hollow trees. The species is threatened throughout its distribution range and has been listed in Annex IV of the EU's Habitats Directive (Luce, 1996). Studies of its behaviour and ecology are therefore being undertaken to establish its habitat needs, population dynamics and dispersal. In our study area in southeastern Sweden, it inhabits old hollow oaks Quercus robur in woodland pastures (Ranius and Nilsson, 1997). The

Loss of contact

Many of the tagged beetles—71% of females and 20% of males—ceased to be locatable before the nominal lifetime of the battery had been reached. As suggested by these figures, the proportion of the battery life for which beetles remained detectable was greater for males than females (t-test with arcsine transform, t=5.3, P<0.001, Fig. 3). In the first year, when no plastic coating was used on the antenna wire, loss of contact was a more serious problem, with nine out of ten transmitters becoming

Discussion

The higher rate at which contact was lost in females than in males may be due to differing behaviours of the two sexes. Females probably make more digging movements within the tree hollows when laying eggs and in this process the transmitter or the antenna may be damaged. It is also probable that some batteries expired before the nominal lifetime because they became wet. It seems unlikely that the majority of the lost individuals had dispersed out of the study area, as both our radio telemetry

Conclusions

Our study shows that radio telemetry can be a useful technique for locating and following large-bodied insects. Its advantages over harmonic direction-finding and harmonic radar are that several individuals can be followed simultaneously and that location is possible even in dense vegetation and tree hollows. Similar to these techniques, it has the advantage over mark–recapture of providing direct information on when and where movements have occurred. There are, however, some disadvantages: a

Acknowledgements

Sven G. Nilsson inspired us to use radio telemetry in our study of dispersal in Osmoderma eremita. Sven G. Nilsson, Glenn Svensson, Joe Riley, Alistair Drake and Don Reynolds gave valuable comments on the manuscript. Ola Olsson, Ulf Wiktander and Jon Loman kindly lent out the receivers. Thomas Persson, Andreas Malmqvist, Roland Kroon, Kennet Claesson, Anna Eklöf and Ulrika Carlsson worked as field assistants. Finally we thank the landowners, Oscar Ekman Jr and Henric Falkenberg, for their great

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