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An overlooked plant–parakeet mutualism counteracts human overharvesting on an endangered tree
The exponential growth of the human population often causes the overexploitation of resources and disruption of ecological interactions. Here, we propose that the antagonist effect of humans on exploited species might be alleviated with the advent of a second predator species. We focused on the comp...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
The Royal Society Publishing
2018
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5792925/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29410848 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.171456 |
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author | Speziale, Karina L. Lambertucci, Sergio A. Gleiser, Gabriela Tella, José L. Hiraldo, Fernando Aizen, Marcelo A. |
author_facet | Speziale, Karina L. Lambertucci, Sergio A. Gleiser, Gabriela Tella, José L. Hiraldo, Fernando Aizen, Marcelo A. |
author_sort | Speziale, Karina L. |
collection | PubMed |
description | The exponential growth of the human population often causes the overexploitation of resources and disruption of ecological interactions. Here, we propose that the antagonist effect of humans on exploited species might be alleviated with the advent of a second predator species. We focused on the complex interactions between an endangered conifer (Araucaria araucana) and two seed exploiters: the Austral parakeet (Enicognathus ferrugineus) and human seed collectors. We tested the importance of partial seed consumption by parakeets as an escape from human seed harvesting. Although parakeets frequently ate whole seeds, a substantial proportion of the seeds found under trees were only partially eaten and avoided by human seed collectors. These seeds germinated at a similar proportion but faster than intact seeds under laboratory conditions. Our results revealed an overlooked mutualism between parakeets and an endangered tree. Incomplete seed eating by parakeets, plus selection against these eaten seeds by humans, may enhance regeneration possibilities for this conifer species subject to human seed collection, turning the scale of the antagonism–mutualism continuum to the mutualistic side. In this context, parakeets might be providing an important service in those forests subject to human harvesting by allowing a fraction of seeds to escape human predation. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5792925 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2018 |
publisher | The Royal Society Publishing |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-57929252018-02-06 An overlooked plant–parakeet mutualism counteracts human overharvesting on an endangered tree Speziale, Karina L. Lambertucci, Sergio A. Gleiser, Gabriela Tella, José L. Hiraldo, Fernando Aizen, Marcelo A. R Soc Open Sci Biology (Whole Organism) The exponential growth of the human population often causes the overexploitation of resources and disruption of ecological interactions. Here, we propose that the antagonist effect of humans on exploited species might be alleviated with the advent of a second predator species. We focused on the complex interactions between an endangered conifer (Araucaria araucana) and two seed exploiters: the Austral parakeet (Enicognathus ferrugineus) and human seed collectors. We tested the importance of partial seed consumption by parakeets as an escape from human seed harvesting. Although parakeets frequently ate whole seeds, a substantial proportion of the seeds found under trees were only partially eaten and avoided by human seed collectors. These seeds germinated at a similar proportion but faster than intact seeds under laboratory conditions. Our results revealed an overlooked mutualism between parakeets and an endangered tree. Incomplete seed eating by parakeets, plus selection against these eaten seeds by humans, may enhance regeneration possibilities for this conifer species subject to human seed collection, turning the scale of the antagonism–mutualism continuum to the mutualistic side. In this context, parakeets might be providing an important service in those forests subject to human harvesting by allowing a fraction of seeds to escape human predation. The Royal Society Publishing 2018-01-31 /pmc/articles/PMC5792925/ /pubmed/29410848 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.171456 Text en © 2018 The Authors. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Biology (Whole Organism) Speziale, Karina L. Lambertucci, Sergio A. Gleiser, Gabriela Tella, José L. Hiraldo, Fernando Aizen, Marcelo A. An overlooked plant–parakeet mutualism counteracts human overharvesting on an endangered tree |
title | An overlooked plant–parakeet mutualism counteracts human overharvesting on an endangered tree |
title_full | An overlooked plant–parakeet mutualism counteracts human overharvesting on an endangered tree |
title_fullStr | An overlooked plant–parakeet mutualism counteracts human overharvesting on an endangered tree |
title_full_unstemmed | An overlooked plant–parakeet mutualism counteracts human overharvesting on an endangered tree |
title_short | An overlooked plant–parakeet mutualism counteracts human overharvesting on an endangered tree |
title_sort | overlooked plant–parakeet mutualism counteracts human overharvesting on an endangered tree |
topic | Biology (Whole Organism) |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5792925/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29410848 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.171456 |
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