Carrion Community
Definition
The full assemblage of arthropods associated with a decomposing body at a given point in time: calyptrate flies, silphid and staphylinid beetles, dermestid beetles, mites, and a range of necrophagous, predatory, and incidental species.
- Includes
- Calyptrate flies, silphid and staphylinid beetles, dermestid beetles, mites
- Roles
- Necrophagous, predatory and incidental species
- Use
- Basis of successional PMI estimation
- Time dependence
- Composition shifts as decomposition progresses
Common questions
Why does the carrion community change over the course of decomposition?+
Different species are attracted at different stages because they depend on particular decomposition products or feed on earlier colonisers, so flies dominate fresh remains while beetles and mites become more prominent as the body dries and decomposition advances.
What limits the reliability of carrion community data for PMI estimation?+
Local climate, geography, season, and whether the body is indoors, buried or submerged all change which species arrive and when, so successional data collected in one region and season cannot be applied directly elsewhere without local reference studies.
Related terms
- Dermestidae (Hide Beetles)
- Beetles in the family Dermestidae that colonise remains in the dry or skeletal stage, feeding on desiccated tissue, skin, and hair. Their...
- Faunal Succession
- The predictable, roughly ordered replacement of one insect community by another as a cadaver's chemistry and physical condition change through decomposition. Each...
- Indicator Species
- A species whose known arrival window in the local succession series allows the analyst to set a bound on elapsed time. Its...
- Reference Succession Series
- A documented record of which species colonise carcasses in a given region and season, in what order, and for roughly how long....
- Silphidae (Burying Beetles and Allies)
- A family of carrion beetles that arrive during active or advanced decay. Some bury small carcasses for larval feeding; others compete with...