Automated cerebrospinal fluid cytology: limitations and reasonable applications

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the precision and clinical applicability of the Bayer ADVIA 120 cytometer (Bayer Healthcare, Fernwald, Germany) for cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) cell count and differentiation. STUDY DESIGN: One hundred six analyses of CSF from 98 patients by the ADVIA 120 were compared with routine cell count and microscopic differentiation. Correlation coefficients were calculated. RESULTS: In general, the total cell counts of both methods correlated well. The best correlations were seen at higher cell counts, > or = 100 cells per microliter with < 100 erythrocytes per microliter. The best correlations of cell differentiation were seen for lymphocytes and neutrophils, while the results for monocytes and eosinophils were less precise. In some cases, considerable differences between automated and microscopic cell counts and differentiation were seen that were relevant to clinical decision making. The detection of pathologic cell types, such as hemosiderophages, mitoses and neoplastic cells, was not provided by automated cytometry. CONCLUSION: When experienced personnel are not available, a preliminary cell count and differentiation between neutrophilic and lymphocytic reactions by automated cytometry may be valuable in allowing initial therapeutic decision making. Since the detection of pathologic cell types is not provided and the precision at low cell counts is only moderate, a personal microscopic evaluation of each sample is still indispensable to avoid misdiagnoses.     

Patch size has no effect on insect visitation rate per unit area in garden-scale flower patches

Previous studies investigating the effect of flower patch size on insect flower visitation rate have compared relatively large patches (10–1000s m²) and have generally found a negative relationship per unit area or per flower. Here, we investigate the effects of patch size on insect visitation in patches of smaller area (range c. 0.1–3.1 m²), which are of particular relevance to ornamental flower beds in parks and gardens. We studied two common garden plant species in full bloom with 6 patch sizes each: borage (Borago officinalis) and lavender (Lavandula × intermedia ‘Grosso’). We quantified flower visitation by insects by making repeated counts of the insects foraging at each patch. On borage, all insects were honey bees (Apis mellifera, n = 5506 counts). On lavender, insects (n = 737 counts) were bumble bees (Bombus spp., 76.9%), flies (Diptera, 22.4%), and butterflies (Lepidoptera, 0.7%). On both plant species we found positive linear effects of patch size on insect numbers. However, there was no effect of patch size on the number of insects per unit area or per flower and, on lavender, for all insects combined or only bumble bees. The results show that it is possible to make unbiased comparisons of the attractiveness of plant species or varieties to flower-visiting insects using patches of different size within the small scale range studied and make possible projects aimed at comparing ornamental plant varieties using existing garden flower patches of variable area.     

Floral traits and phenology drive pollinators diversity and pollinators visits in selected endemic Elaeocarpus spp. of the Western Ghats

The detailed studies on phenology, floral morphology in relation to pollination of six endemic species of Elaeocarpus were carried out at different forest areas of Southern Western Ghats, India. The pollinators were attracted by morphology and nature of flowers with different types of rewards offered by the flowers of Elaeocarpus. The number of flowers per tree has determined its type of pollinators, in which, Coleoptera and Diptera visitation was significant and positive relation with increased number of flowers per tree. However, the visitation by Hymenoptera and Lepidoptera were negatively related with flower numbers per tree. The visitation of Diptera was significant and positive relation with number of petal divisions (fringes) of flowers. Also, it has predicted that higher number of petal divisions may act as an optical advertisement to the floral visitors. Like this, the size of the flower was also one of the factors to attract the members Diptera. Also, the size of the flower was negative and significant relation with members of Hymenoptera. Moreover, the visitation of Coleoptera and Lepidoptera were also affected by the size of the flowers. The pollen production was also positive and significant relation with the visitation of Hymenoptera and Coleoptera. Therefore, it may be assumed that the primary reward for Hymenoptera and Coleoptera will be pollen grains.     

Importance of natural licks for the mammals in Bornean inland tropical rain forests

An intensive camera-trapping study and a nutrient analysis were carried out to understand how natural licks are important for mammals in inland tropical rain forests where soil cations are usually depleted. Using camera traps, we investigated the fauna, food habits, and the frequency of visitation by species at five natural licks in the Deramakot forest reserve, Sabah, Malaysia. All food-habit types of mammals (carnivore, herbivore-frugivore, insectivore, and omnivore), which included 29 (78.4%) of 37 species known in Deramakot, were recorded at the natural licks. The sambar deer, followed by the bearded pig, the lesser mouse-deer, the Malay badger, and the orangutan were the most commonly recorded species and represented 77.5% in terms of the frequency of appearance in all photographs taken throughout the year. These results indicated that, although the proportion of species recorded at the natural licks relative to the whole mammalian fauna of the forest was high, the frequency of visitation greatly varied among the species, and only a few species dominated. The frequency of visitation seemed to reflect both the density of species and the demand for the minerals, because some endangered, low-density species were more frequently recorded by cameras than expected—for example, the orangutan which was one of the top five species among natural-lick users. The natural licks with greater concentrations of minerals in seepage soil water were significantly preferred by the sambar deer and the bearded pig than those with lower concentrations of minerals. This result suggests that the chemical properties of soil water in natural licks determine the frequency of visitation of these herbivorous species that have strong demand for minerals.     

Weather and Prey Predict Mammals’ Visitation to Water

Throughout many arid lands of Africa, Australia and the United States, wildlife agencies provide water year-round for increasing game populations and enhancing biodiversity, despite concerns that water provisioning may favor species more dependent on water, increase predation, and reduce biodiversity. In part, understanding the effects of water provisioning requires identifying why and when animals visit water. Employing this information, by matching water provisioning with use by target species, could assist wildlife management objectives while mitigating unintended consequences of year-round watering regimes. Therefore, we examined if weather variables (maximum temperature, relative humidity [RH], vapor pressure deficit [VPD], long and short-term precipitation) and predator-prey relationships (i.e., prey presence) predicted water visitation by 9 mammals. We modeled visitation as recorded by trail cameras at Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge, New Mexico, USA (June 2009 to September 2014) using generalized linear modeling. For 3 native ungulates, elk (Cervus Canadensis), mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus), and pronghorn (Antilocapra americana), less long-term precipitation and higher maximum temperatures increased visitation, including RH for mule deer. Less long-term precipitation and higher VPD increased oryx (Oryx gazella) and desert cottontail rabbits (Sylvilagus audubonii) visitation. Long-term precipitation, with RH or VPD, predicted visitation for black-tailed jackrabbits (Lepus californicus). Standardized model coefficients demonstrated that the amount of long-term precipitation influenced herbivore visitation most. Weather (especially maximum temperature) and prey (cottontails and jackrabbits) predicted bobcat (Lynx rufus) visitation. Mule deer visitation had the largest influence on coyote (Canis latrans) visitation. Puma (Puma concolor) visitation was solely predicted by prey visitation (elk, mule deer, oryx). Most ungulate visitation peaked during May and June. Coyote, elk and puma visitation was relatively consistent throughout the year. Within the diel-period, activity patterns for predators corresponded with prey. Year-round water management may favor species with consistent use throughout the year, and facilitate predation. Providing water only during periods of high use by target species may moderate unwanted biological costs.     

Use of dawn and dusk sight observations to determine colony size and family composition in Eurasian beaverCastor fiber

The methods used to determine family composition and colony size in Eurasian beaverCastor fiber Linnaeus, 1758 are often poorly described in published reports. Here we show how repeated counts of colony size in a random sample of colonies (n = 19) varied between dusk and dawn, between the months of August and September, and following successive counts. Mean counts at dusk and the following dawn did not vary significantly, though mean colony size was significantly greater in August than September. However, because all colony members are rarely seen during a single dusk or dawn count, successive counts often provided new information about the maximum number in each age class. This allowed us to adjust colony size following each count using the largest values thus far obtained, with the result that the mean adjusted colony size increased during six successive counts over seven weeks from 2.4 to 3.8. Family composition based on information from all six counts was 54% adults, 26% yearlings and 19% kits. Evidence suggests that kits in particular are undercounted by this method. Figures for colony size and composition in beaver should be viewed with caution if not obtained by methods tested for both precision and accuracy.     

How do visitation patterns vary among pollinators in relation to floral display and floral design in a generalist pollination system?

Diverse pollinator assemblages may impose complex selection and thus limit specialisation to particular pollinators. Previous work has concentrated on how visitation rates of different pollinators vary in space and time and how pollinators may vary in efficiency. In this study I quantify variation in visitation rates and foraging behaviour of different insect types (1) in space and time and (2) in relation to variation in floral design (flower size and form) and floral display (number of open flowers) for the distylous clonal shrub Jasminum fruticans. Mean visitation rate showed a significant interaction between insect type and population for seven populations in one year, and between insect types and years for a single population over 3 years. There was also a significant interaction between insect type and population for the proportion of flowers visited. In general the number of visits was positively related to the number of open flowers in a patch, but analyses by insect type showed that this was only true for bee flies and butterflies. Short-tongued bees showed a positive relationship between visitation rate and the number of open flowers on the focal stem, and hawkmoths and butterflies made more visits to plants with larger flowers. Hawkmoths were the only insect type to show a positive relation between the number of flowers visited per foraging bout and flower size. The significant differences between different insect types in patterns of variation in visitation rates in response to floral design and display may act to diversify selection on floral traits, and thereby constrain specialisation of the plant to particular pollinators.     

How to efficiently obtain accurate estimates of flower visitation rates by pollinators

Regional declines in insect pollinators have raised concerns about crop pollination. Many pollinator studies use visitation rate (pollinators/time) as a proxy for the quality of crop pollination. Visitation rate estimates are based on observation durations that vary significantly between studies. How observation duration relates to the accuracy of the visitation rate estimate is, however, unknown. We studied this relationship using six day-long observations (06:00 h–19:00 h) in leek-seed production fields (totalling 78 h). We analysed beyond which point in time observing longer did not significantly improve the accuracy of the visitation rate estimate (minimum observation duration). We furthermore explored the relationship between the minimum observation duration and visitation rate, time of day and temperature. We found that the minimum observation duration (mean ± SD: 24 ± 11.9 min) was significantly related to visitation rate, where the observation time required to obtain accurate estimates decreased with increasing visitation rate. Minimum observation duration varied greatly between days and between fields but not within days. Within days, the visitation rates differed significantly only between the hour-intervals 06:00 h–07:00 h (lowest visitation rate) and 09:00 h–11:00 h (highest rate). Minimum observation duration decreased up to around 22 °C beyond which it remained fairly stable. Surprisingly, even after three day-long observations on the same plant we found new pollinator species visiting the flowers, suggesting that species-richness estimates based on plant observations alone probably underestimate true species richness. Because especially between-day variation in visitation rate on single plants can be large, reliable estimates of the pollinator visitation rate during the plant’s flowering time require observations on multiple days. Standardising the number of pollinators rather than the time to observe (standardised pollinator timing approach: time to n-pollinator visits) may provide more consistent accurate assessments of visitation rate, especially for studies that use gradients in visitation rates to examine the contribution of pollinators to crop pollination.     

Pollinator community responses to the spatial population structure of wild plants: A pan-European approach

Land-use changes can alter the spatial population structure of plant species, which may in turn affect the attractiveness of flower aggregations to different groups of pollinators at different spatial scales. To assess how pollinators respond to spatial heterogeneity of plant distributions and whether honeybees affect visitation by other pollinators we used an extensive data set comprising ten plant species and their flower visitors from five European countries. In particular we tested the hypothesis that the composition of the flower visitor community in terms of visitation frequencies by different pollinator groups were affected by the spatial plant population structure, viz. area and density measures, at a within-population (‘patch’) and among-population (‘population’) scale. We found that patch area and population density were the spatial variables that best explained the variation in visitation frequencies within the pollinator community. Honeybees had higher visitation frequencies in larger patches, while bumblebees and hoverflies had higher visitation frequencies in sparser populations. Solitary bees had higher visitation frequencies in sparser populations and smaller patches. We also tested the hypothesis that honeybees affect the composition of the pollinator community by altering the visitation frequencies of other groups of pollinators. There was a positive relationship between visitation frequencies of honeybees and bumblebees, while the relationship with hoverflies and solitary bees varied (positive, negative and no relationship) depending on the plant species under study. The overall conclusion is that the spatial structure of plant populations affects different groups of pollinators in contrasting ways at both the local (‘patch’) and the larger (‘population’) scales and, that honeybees affect the flower visitation by other pollinator groups in various ways, depending on the plant species under study. These contrasting responses emphasize the need to investigate the entire pollinator community when the effects of landscape change on plant–pollinator interactions are studied.     

Effects of variation in flower number on pollinator visits in Cirsium purpuratum (Asteraceae)

We examined the functional relationships between floral display and two types of bumble bee response, the visitation rate per plant and the number of flowers visited on a plant, in an artificially arranged field population of Cirsium purpuratum. To reduce the variance in data, we collected data for each day separately and adopted a Latin square design in selecting the focal plants within a day. We then tested several types of regressions to each set of data to find the best-fitting line accounting for the observed relationship between pollinator response and display size. We found that the visitation rate of bumble bees per plant was a decelerating function of floral display, and that the number of flowering heads visited on a plant increased linearly with display size. Predicted from the above two functions, the visitation rate per head was independent of floral display and nearly constant within each day. Our results suggest that conventional methods in collecting and analyzing data on pollinator visitation may yield large variance in data derived from temporal and spatial heterogeneity and that improved methods employed here are effective in reducing the variance and estimating patterns of pollinator response to floral display more accurately.     

Herbivore and pathogen damage on grassland and woodland plants: a test of the herbivore uncertainty principle

Researchers can alter the behaviour and ecology of their study organisms by conducting such seemingly benign activities as non-destructive measurements and observations. In plant communities, researcher visitation and measurement of plants may increase herbivore damage in some plant species while decreasing it in others. Simply measuring plants could change their competitive ability by altering the amount of herbivore damage that they suffer. Currently, however, there is only limited empirical evidence to support this `herbivore uncertainty principle' (HUP). We tested the HUP by quantifying the amount of herbivore and pathogen damage in 13 plant species (> 1400 individuals) at four different visitation intensities at Cedar Creek Natural History Area, Minnesota, USA. Altogether, we found very little evidence to support the HUP at any intensity of visitation. Researcher visitation did not alter overall plant herbivore damage or survival and we did not detect a significant visitation effect in any of the 13 species. Pathogen damage also did not significantly vary among visitation treatments, although there was some evidence that high visitation caused slightly higher pathogen damage. Based on our results, we question whether this phenomenon should be considered a `principle' of plant ecology.     

Pollinators differ in their contribution to the male fitness of a self-incompatible composite

Premise

Reproductive fitness in plants is often determined by the quantity and quality of pollen transferred by pollinators. However, many fitness studies measure only female fitness or rely on proxies for male fitness. Here we assessed how five bee taxon groups affect male fitness in a prairie plant by quantifying pollen removal, visitation, and siring success using paternity assignments and a unique pollinator visitation experiment.

Methods

In Echinacea angustifolia, we measured per-visit pollen removal for each pollinator taxon and estimated the number of pollen grains needed for successful ovule fertilization. Additionally, we directly measured pollinator influence on siring by allowing only one bee taxon to visit each pollen-donor plant, while open-pollinated plants acted as unrestricted pollen recipients. We genotyped the resulting offspring, assigned paternity, and used aster statistical models to quantify siring success.

Results

Siring success of pollen-donor plants differed among the five pollinator groups. Nongrooming male bees were associated with increased siring success. Bees from all taxa removed most of the flowering head's pollen in one visit. However, coneflower-specialist bee Andrena helianthiformis removed the most pollen per visit. Female fitness and proxy measures of male fitness, such as pollinator visitation and pollen removal, did not align with our direct quantifications of male fitness.

Conclusions

Our results illustrate the need for more studies to directly quantify male fitness, and we caution against using male fitness proxy measures. In addition, conservation efforts that preserve a diverse pollinator community can benefit plants in fragmented landscapes.

     

Effects of an exotic plant and habitat disturbance on pollinator visitation and reproduction in a boreal forest herb

The invasion of exotic species into natural habitats is considered to be a major threat to biodiversity, and many studies have examined how exotic plants directly affect native plant species through competitive interactions for abiotic resources. However, although exotics can have potentially great ecological and evolutionary consequences, very few researchers have studied the effect of exotics on the interactions between plants and their mutualistic partners, such as pollinators, and none have reported on such impacts in logged and undisturbed boreal forest ecosystems. Here we show how experimental introductions of an exotic plant species (Phacelia tanacetifolia Bentham) affect pollinator visitation and female reproductive success of a native plant (Melampyrum pratense L.) in recently disturbed (i.e., logged) and in undisturbed boreal forest habitats. The presence of Phacelia significantly increased the number of bumble bees entering plots in both habitat types. However, the exotic species had a strong negative impact on the visitation rate to the native species in both habitat types. Despite this negative impact on pollinator visitation, the exotic had no effect on female reproductive success of the native species in any habitat. Our results show that seed production may be more robust than pollinator visitation to exotic invasion, irrespective of habitat disturbance history.     

Congruence between visitation and pollen-transport networks in a California plant–pollinator community

Most recent studies describing pollination networks are based on observed flower visits, and few have explicitly tested if the floral visitors actually carry pollen. Since floral visitors can vary in their ability to remove and transfer pollen, it is important to show that visitation patterns reflect effective pollination. Given the difficulty of measuring per-visit pollen deposition at the community scale, a first step is to examine the amount of conspecific pollen carried by insect visitors. Here I compared the plant–animal visitation network with the pollen-transport network, estimated from insect pollen loads, for a montane meadow community from southern California, USA. Visitation and pollen-transport networks were positively associated with each other in both 2001 and 2002. However, the exclusion of visitors that do not carry any conspecific pollen reveals that pollen-transport networks are more specialized from the plants' perspective and that species are involved in fewer mutualistic interactions compared with estimates derived from visitation frequencies. Although conspecific pollen loads were smaller in 2002, bees tended to carry the largest conspecific loads in both years and were responsible for transporting the most pollen. These results suggest that, although visitation networks are suitable first-order approximations of pollination networks, information on which visitors carry conspecific pollen, and in what amounts, is crucial for distinguishing between antagonistic and mutualistic interactions.     

Seasonal Use of Latrines by Bobcats: Implications for Monitoring Programs

Latrines serve as important communication networks among felids for transmitting information relative to social dominance, reproductive status, and defense of hunting areas. During January 2011–August 2012, we monitored 10 bobcat (Lynx rufus) latrines in the northern Lower Peninsula (NLP) of Michigan, USA, using motion-sensitive cameras to estimate bobcat visitation and scat deposition rates among 3 biological seasons (mating, kitten-rearing, non-mating). Bobcat visitation rates differed among the 3 seasons. We found equal number of visits during the mating and kitten-rearing seasons, and lower visitation rates during the non-mating season. Scat deposition rates differed among the 3 seasons. We found a net gain of scats deposited during the mating and non-mating seasons, whereas there was a net loss of scats during the kitten-rearing season. An artificial latrine protocol we developed yielded visitation at 4 of 12 artificial latrine sites. Monitoring natural and artificial latrines during the mating and kitten-rearing seasons could provide valuable data for managing bobcat populations. © 2020 The Wildlife Society.     

Pollinator Interactions with Yellow Starthistle (Centaurea solstitialis) across Urban,Agricultural, and Natural Landscapes

Pollinator-plant relationships are found to be particularly vulnerable to land use change. Yet despite extensive research in agricultural and natural systems, less attention has focused on these interactions in neighboring urban areas and its impact on pollination services. We investigated pollinator-plant interactions in a peri-urban landscape on the outskirts of the San Francisco Bay Area, California, where urban, agricultural, and natural land use types interface. We made standardized observations of floral visitation and measured seed set of yellow starthistle (Centaurea solstitialis), a common grassland invasive, to test the hypotheses that increasing urbanization decreases 1) rates of bee visitation, 2) viable seed set, and 3) the efficiency of pollination (relationship between bee visitation and seed set). We unexpectedly found that bee visitation was highest in urban and agricultural land use contexts, but in contrast, seed set rates in these human-altered landscapes were lower than in natural sites. An explanation for the discrepancy between floral visitation and seed set is that higher plant diversity in urban and agricultural areas, as a result of more introduced species, decreases pollinator efficiency. If these patterns are consistent across other plant species, the novel plant communities created in these managed landscapes and the generalist bee species that are favored by human-altered environments will reduce pollination services.     

Protected Area Tourism in a Changing Climate: Will Visitation at US National Parks Warm Up or Overheat?

Climate change will affect not only natural and cultural resources within protected areas but also tourism and visitation patterns. The U.S. National Park Service systematically collects data regarding its 270+ million annual recreation visits, and therefore provides an opportunity to examine how human visitation may respond to climate change from the tropics to the polar regions. To assess the relationship between climate and park visitation, we evaluated historical monthly mean air temperature and visitation data (1979–2013) at 340 parks and projected potential future visitation (2041–2060) based on two warming-climate scenarios and two visitation-growth scenarios. For the entire park system a third-order polynomial temperature model explained 69% of the variation in historical visitation trends. Visitation generally increased with increasing average monthly temperature, but decreased strongly with temperatures > 25°C. Linear to polynomial monthly temperature models also explained historical visitation at individual parks (R² 0.12-0.99, mean = 0.79, median = 0.87). Future visitation at almost all parks (95%) may change based on historical temperature, historical visitation, and future temperature projections. Warming-mediated increases in potential visitation are projected for most months in most parks (67–77% of months; range across future scenarios), resulting in future increases in total annual visits across the park system (8–23%) and expansion of the visitation season at individual parks (13–31 days). Although very warm months at some parks may see decreases in future visitation, this potential change represents a relatively small proportion of visitation across the national park system. A changing climate is likely to have cascading and complex effects on protected area visitation, management, and local economies. Results suggest that protected areas and neighboring communities that develop adaptation strategies for these changes may be able to both capitalize on opportunities and minimize detriment related to changing visitation.     

Use of Fruiting Trees by Birds in Continuous Forest and Riparian Forest Remnants in Los Tuxtlas,Veracruz, Mexico1

The composition of plant species in fragmented landscapes may be influenced by the pattern of visitation by birds to fruiting trees and by the movement of seeds among and within fragments. We compared bird visitation patterns to two tree species (Dendropanax arboreus, Araliaceae; Bursera simaruba, Burseraceae) in continuous forest and remnants of riparian vegetation in a region dominated by pasture in Los Tuxtlas, Veracruz, Mexico. We quantified frequency of visitation, fruit consumption, consistency of visitation (percentage of total tree observation periods during which a given bird species was recorded), and species composition of birds at individuals of both tree species in continuous forest and riparian remnants. Bird visitation rate, species richness, and fruit consumption rates were similar within both tree species in the two habitats. Species assemblages at D. arboreus were different between continuous forest and remnants. Species assemblages at B. simaruba did not differ by habitat. Our results demonstrate that habitat disturbance may influence avian visitation patterns, which may in turn affect subsequent recruitment patterns in some tree species. Our results, however, were not consistent between the tree species, suggesting that it is difficult to generalize concerning the effects of forest disturbance on avian species assemblages in fruiting trees.     

Flower‐visitor networks only partially predict the function of pollen transport by bees

Mutualistic networks display distinct structural and organizational features such as nestedness, power‐law degree distribution and asymmetric dependencies. Attention is now focused on how these structural properties influence network function. Most plant‐pollinator networks are constructed using records of animals contacting flowers, which is based on the assumption that all visitors to flowers are pollinators; however, animals may visit flowers as nectar robbers, florivores, or to prey upon other visitors. To differentiate potential pollinator interactions from other interaction types, we examined individual bees that had visited flowers to detect if they carried pollen. Using these data, we constructed visitation and pollen‐transport networks for a spinifex‐dominated arid zone grassland. To determine how the structure of the visitation network reflects pollen transport, we compared the two networks using a null model approach to account for differences in network size. Differences in number of species, nestedness and connectance observed between the visitation and pollen‐transport networks were within expected ranges generated under the null model. The pollen‐transport network was more specialized, had lower interaction evenness, and fewer links compared to the visitation network. Almost half the number of species of the visitation network participated in the pollen‐transport network, and one‐third of unique visitation interactions resulted in pollen transport, highlighting that visitation does not always result in pollination. Floral visitor data indicate potential pollen transporters, but inferring pollination function from visitation networks needs to be performed cautiously as pollen transport resulted from both common and rare interactions, and depended on visitor identity. Although visitation and pollen‐transport networks are structurally similar, the function of all species cannot be predicted from the visitation network alone. Considering pollen transport in visitation networks is a simple first step towards determining pollinators from non‐pollinators. This is fundamental for understanding how network structure relates to network function.     

Dung fungi as a proxy for megaherbivores: opportunities and limitations for archaeological applications

The use of spores of coprophilous fungi from sedimentary sequences as proxy evidence for large herbivore abundance has garnered pronounced attention and scrutiny over the past three decades. In response to the rapid rate at which new information is being discovered on this topic, this paper presents a brief review of the archaeological applications so far, and outlines opportunities and limitations of using Sporormiella as a proxy for herbivore abundance. Specific archaeological uses of this proxy include understanding megaherbivore extinctions and human land use patterns such as pastoralism and agriculture. We analyse how dung fungal records are formed and review the mycological literature to outline factors affecting spore reproduction and preservation. These include how strongly each commonly used dung fungal taxon relies on dung as a substrate and environmental factors affecting dung fungal reproduction and coprophilous fungi deposition. Certain laboratory preparation techniques adversely affect spore representation on pollen slides. The methods of analysis and quantification of spore records also impact our understanding. We describe good practice to increase precision of analytical methods. Due to limitations imposed by some of these factors, it is possible that an absence of dung fungi from a palaeoecological record does not imply an absence of herbivores. However, consideration of these factors and inclusion of as wide a range of coprophilous spore records as possible increases the reliability of such inferences.