{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,23]],"date-time":"2026-09-23T05:07:14Z","timestamp":1790140034674,"version":"4.0.1"},"reference-count":28,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"9","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,20]],"date-time":"2026-09-20T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1789862400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100012166","name":"National Key R&D Program of China","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["2025YFE0211201"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2025YFE0211201"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100012166","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"name":"National Science & Technology Fundamental Resources Investigation Program of China","award":["2025FY100802"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2025FY100802"]}]},{"name":"National Science & Technology Fundamental Resources Investigation Program of China","award":["2024FY100403"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2024FY100403"]}]},{"name":"National Science Foundation of China","award":["32500361"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["32500361"]}]},{"name":"National Science Foundation of China","award":["32200354"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["32200354"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Insects"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Understanding how ecological diversification translates into morphological differentiation is central to explaining the evolution of organismal form and function. True dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae) exhibit diverse resource-use strategies, mainly including tunneling and rolling behaviors, which impose different functional demands on locomotion, excavation, and dispersal. However, it is unclear whether these ecological differences are consistently associated with differentiation in functional traits, particularly across different body-size classes. Here, we compared five dung beetle species representing large and small tunnelers, large and small rollers, and a mixed-strategy species using external structural traits, functional trait analyses, principal component analysis, and allometric modeling. Allometric analyses indicated that most functional traits exhibited similar scaling relationships among species after false-discovery-rate correction, suggesting that structural differentiation was not primarily driven by body-size differences. Functional morphological analyses revealed clear differentiation among species with contrasting resource-use strategies, with variation mainly associated with foreleg proportions, hindleg elongation, and wing morphology. Size-matched comparisons further showed that rollers consistently possessed relatively longer hindlegs and more elongated hind-tibiae than tunnelers across body-size classes, whereas foreleg proportions and protibial structures displayed more variable patterns. The mixed-strategy species exhibited a mosaic combination of traits rather than strictly structural dependencies. These findings demonstrate that dung-relocation strategies are associated with different coordinated functional trait differentiation, highlighting a potential trade-off between excavation-related and locomotion\/dispersal-related specialization.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/insects17090968","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,22]],"date-time":"2026-09-22T17:14:59Z","timestamp":1790097299000},"page":"968","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Functional Morphological Differentiation Associated with Dung-Relocation Strategies in True Dung Beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeinae)"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"17","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-3523-6307","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Zhehao","family":"Tian","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Forestry and Grassland Science, Ningxia University, Yinchuan 750021, China"},{"name":"Hebei Key Laboratory of Animal Diversity, College of Life Science, Langfang Normal University, Langfang 065000, China"},{"name":"Academy of Plateau Science and Sustainability, Qinghai Normal University, Xining 810016, China"},{"name":"State Key Laboratory of Animal Biodiversity Conservation and Integrated Pest Management, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"software","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"investigation","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"writing-original-draft","vocabulary":"credit"}]},{"given":"Jianxiong","family":"Su","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"State Key Laboratory of Animal Biodiversity Conservation and Integrated Pest Management, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China"},{"name":"School of Agricultural Science, Jiangxi Agricultural University, Nanchang 330045, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"formal-analysis","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"data-curation","vocabulary":"credit"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5442-7921","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Sheng","family":"Li","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"State Key Laboratory of Animal Biodiversity Conservation and Integrated Pest Management, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"writing-review-editing","vocabulary":"credit"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6938-9865","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Yijie","family":"Tong","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"State Key Laboratory of Animal Biodiversity Conservation and Integrated Pest Management, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"methodology","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"writing-review-editing","vocabulary":"credit"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-3725-4242","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Xinpu","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Forestry and Grassland Science, Ningxia University, Yinchuan 750021, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"conceptualization","vocabulary":"credit"}]},{"given":"Ming","family":"Bai","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Hebei Key Laboratory of Animal Diversity, College of Life Science, Langfang Normal University, Langfang 065000, China"},{"name":"Academy of Plateau Science and Sustainability, Qinghai Normal University, Xining 810016, China"},{"name":"State Key Laboratory of Animal Biodiversity Conservation and Integrated Pest Management, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"conceptualization","vocabulary":"credit"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,20]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","unstructured":"B\u00e1nki, O., Roskov, Y., D\u00f6ring, M., Ower, G., Hern\u00e1ndez Robles, D.R., Plata Corredor, C.A., Stjernegaard Jeppesen, T., \u00d6rn, A., Pape, T., and Hobern, D. 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