Ecotourism involves visiting natural areas without adverselyaffecting biodiversity, an objective that is often not reached.Although ecotourism in El Salvador is currently under-developed,it has been proposed for the conservation of forests that remainwithin the territory. To this respect, National Park El Imposible isthe largest natural protected area in the nation, with 23% of itsextension designated for ecotourism. The objective of this studywas to evaluate the impact of ecological disturbances producedby ecotourism, using dung beetles as biological indicators in thepark. Three zones differing in tourism intensity: conservation,extensive, and intensive, were evaluated. Six samplings usingpitfall traps were carried out from June–November, 2013 in eachzone. We recorded a significantly lower beetle abundance in theintensive-use zone, even though biomass tended to increase withecotourism intensity due to proportional increase in large-sizedspecies. There were differences in composition, diversity, andevenness of the dung beetle assemblage, evidencing ecologicaldisturbances in the intensive-use zone. Ecotourism in the park hascaused a negative impact on the dung beetle assemblagestructure due to the loss of habitat specialists in favor ofwidespread generalists. Consequently, ecotourism should beregulated to minimize its effects in the site. Peer reviewed