author(s)
Aparna S, Deepak Naik and ARV Kumar

abstract
Scarab beetles form one of the most abundant and diverse taxon performing significant ecological roles in the ecosystems. Their relative distribution in terms of functionality is little known. The present study was attempted to understand the structure and relative composition of two major functional groups of scarabs collected from light traps in six different ecosystem types located in the coastal region, Puttur, Karnataka during April to July 2015. A total of 56 scarab species were recovered during the study. Among them, 34 belonged to phytophagous and 22 species belonged to non-phytophagous groups. In all the ecosystem types, the sub-family Melolonthinae (18) and Aphodiinae (9) were found be the most speciose and abundant taxa among the two functional groups considered. However, proportional distributions of the functional groups were nearly equal in all the ecosystems. Bray-Curtis similarity index showed that natural ecosystem and its combination with agro-ecosystem were closely related compared to different agro-ecosystems alone considered under the study.