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Defaunation changes leaf trait composition of recruit communities in tropical forests in French Guiana
Hunting impacts tropical vertebrate populations, causing declines of species that function as seed dispersers and predators, or that browse seedlings and saplings. Whether and how the resulting reductions in seed dispersal, seed predation, and browsing translate to changes in the tree composition is...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10078438/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36121050 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ecy.3872 |
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author | Vaessen, Rens W. Jansen, Patrick A. Richard‐Hansen, Cécile Boot, René G. A. Denis, Thomas Derroire, Géraldine Petronelli, Pascal de Vries, Jesse S. Barry, Kathryn E. ter Steege, Hans van Kuijk, Marijke |
author_facet | Vaessen, Rens W. Jansen, Patrick A. Richard‐Hansen, Cécile Boot, René G. A. Denis, Thomas Derroire, Géraldine Petronelli, Pascal de Vries, Jesse S. Barry, Kathryn E. ter Steege, Hans van Kuijk, Marijke |
author_sort | Vaessen, Rens W. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Hunting impacts tropical vertebrate populations, causing declines of species that function as seed dispersers and predators, or that browse seedlings and saplings. Whether and how the resulting reductions in seed dispersal, seed predation, and browsing translate to changes in the tree composition is poorly understood. Here, we assess the effect of defaunation on the functional composition of communities of tree recruits in tropical rainforests in French Guiana. We selected eight sites along a gradient of defaunation, caused by differences in hunting pressure, in otherwise intact old‐growth forests in French Guiana. We measured shifts in functional composition by comparing leaf and fruit traits and wood density between tree recruits (up to 5 cm diameter at breast height) and adults, and tested whether and how these compositional shifts related to defaunation. We found a positive relationship with defaunation for shifts in specific leaf area, a negative relationship for shifts of leaf toughness and wood density, and a weak relationship for shifts in fruit traits. Our results suggest that the loss of vertebrates affects ecological processes such as seed dispersal and browsing, of which browsing remains understudied. Even though these changes sometimes seem minor, together they result in major shifts in forest composition. These changes have long‐term ramifications that may alter forest dynamics for generations. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10078438 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | John Wiley & Sons, Inc. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-100784382023-04-07 Defaunation changes leaf trait composition of recruit communities in tropical forests in French Guiana Vaessen, Rens W. Jansen, Patrick A. Richard‐Hansen, Cécile Boot, René G. A. Denis, Thomas Derroire, Géraldine Petronelli, Pascal de Vries, Jesse S. Barry, Kathryn E. ter Steege, Hans van Kuijk, Marijke Ecology Articles Hunting impacts tropical vertebrate populations, causing declines of species that function as seed dispersers and predators, or that browse seedlings and saplings. Whether and how the resulting reductions in seed dispersal, seed predation, and browsing translate to changes in the tree composition is poorly understood. Here, we assess the effect of defaunation on the functional composition of communities of tree recruits in tropical rainforests in French Guiana. We selected eight sites along a gradient of defaunation, caused by differences in hunting pressure, in otherwise intact old‐growth forests in French Guiana. We measured shifts in functional composition by comparing leaf and fruit traits and wood density between tree recruits (up to 5 cm diameter at breast height) and adults, and tested whether and how these compositional shifts related to defaunation. We found a positive relationship with defaunation for shifts in specific leaf area, a negative relationship for shifts of leaf toughness and wood density, and a weak relationship for shifts in fruit traits. Our results suggest that the loss of vertebrates affects ecological processes such as seed dispersal and browsing, of which browsing remains understudied. Even though these changes sometimes seem minor, together they result in major shifts in forest composition. These changes have long‐term ramifications that may alter forest dynamics for generations. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2022-11-27 2023-01 /pmc/articles/PMC10078438/ /pubmed/36121050 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ecy.3872 Text en © 2022 The Authors. Ecology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of The Ecological Society of America. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non‐commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made. |
spellingShingle | Articles Vaessen, Rens W. Jansen, Patrick A. Richard‐Hansen, Cécile Boot, René G. A. Denis, Thomas Derroire, Géraldine Petronelli, Pascal de Vries, Jesse S. Barry, Kathryn E. ter Steege, Hans van Kuijk, Marijke Defaunation changes leaf trait composition of recruit communities in tropical forests in French Guiana |
title | Defaunation changes leaf trait composition of recruit communities in tropical forests in French Guiana |
title_full | Defaunation changes leaf trait composition of recruit communities in tropical forests in French Guiana |
title_fullStr | Defaunation changes leaf trait composition of recruit communities in tropical forests in French Guiana |
title_full_unstemmed | Defaunation changes leaf trait composition of recruit communities in tropical forests in French Guiana |
title_short | Defaunation changes leaf trait composition of recruit communities in tropical forests in French Guiana |
title_sort | defaunation changes leaf trait composition of recruit communities in tropical forests in french guiana |
topic | Articles |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10078438/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36121050 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ecy.3872 |
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