Trond Larsen

Neotropical Scarabaeine dung beetles

Fuller Research Fellow, World Wildlife Fund and Princeton University

EOL Fellow, Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Department of Entomology

Trond is a tropical ecologist with broad interests in diversity patterns and processes. Working primarily with dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae) in the Neotropics, he is studying species distributional patterns along elevational gradients and across Amazonian terra firme forests to assess the effectiveness of protected areas and the impacts of climate change. He also works to understand and mitigate anthropogenic impacts associated with land-use, habitat fragmentation, and hunting, particularly along the developing Interoceanic Highway in Peru. He is investigating the consequences of changing dung beetle communities for ecological processes associated with dung burial, especially seed dispersal. He also studies strategies influencing species coexistence and rarity, mating systems, and general natural history and behavior. Taxonomy of Scarabaeinae is fundamental to my work. In addition to his fellowship with EOL, he is a postdoctoral researcher with WWF and Princeton University, and a research associate with the Amazon Conservation Association and Friends of the Osa.