Assemblage assessment partitioned by body size and lineages
Differences in body size may reflect divergences in species ecology and
behaviour (Inward et al. 2011; Eberle et al. 2014; Lira et al. 2021).
Thus, size related differences in assemblage composition across
different spatial scales may provide insight to the causalities of these
patterns. Therefore, assemblages were analysed according to these three
body size groupings: 1) smaller 7 mm; 2) medium 7-15 mm; 3) larger 15
mm. The respective total body length was calculated using the sum of
pronotal and elytral length (PL+EL). The mean total body length of a
species was determined by taking the mean value of 3-5 individuals of
the same species. Alternatively, assemblage composition analyses were
partitioned according to phylogenetic lineages (following McKenna et al.
2021): Dynastinae, Rutelinae, Melolonthinae (excluding Sericini), and
Sericini to explore also phylogenetic patterns of differences in
assemblage composition (Smith et al. 2021).