Abundance and Phenology of Carrion Beetles in Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area

Allina A. Win^1,2 and Kyle M. Benowitz^1,3,*

¹Department of Biology, Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, TN 37040.²Current address - School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287. ³Department of Biology, Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, TN 37040. *Corresponding author.

Southeastern Naturalist, Volume 24, Issue 4 (2025): 380–393

First published early online: 5 November 2025

Abstract
Competition between conspecifics and congeners is hypothesized to drive the evolution of social behavior across populations and species of burying beetles. One step in predicting variation in competition faced by populations is to estimate abundances of burying beetles and other carrion beetles across locations. Here, we present 2 seasons of data on phenology and abundance of burying beetles and all other Coleopterans from traps spread throughout Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area, a 688-km² forest in Tennessee and Kentucky. We caught 5 species of burying beetle and 4 other species of carrion beetle, and we found similar patterns of seasonality as other studies except for an unexpected peak in activity in late fall. We found limited patterns of spatial organization within the forest for most species and few strong positive or negative associations between species. These results show that this forest hosts a diverse assemblage of carrion beetles that we predict forms a highly competitive environment.

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