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Quantity and quality of seed dispersal by a large arboreal frugivore in small and large Atlantic forest fragments
Seed dispersal is a key process driving the structure, composition, and regeneration of tropical forests. Larger frugivores play a crucial role in community structuring by dispersing large seeds not dispersed by smaller frugivores. We assessed the hypothesis that brown howler monkeys (Alouatta guari...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2018
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5862440/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29561869 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0193660 |
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author | Chaves, Óscar M. Bicca-Marques, Júlio César Chapman, Colin A. |
author_facet | Chaves, Óscar M. Bicca-Marques, Júlio César Chapman, Colin A. |
author_sort | Chaves, Óscar M. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Seed dispersal is a key process driving the structure, composition, and regeneration of tropical forests. Larger frugivores play a crucial role in community structuring by dispersing large seeds not dispersed by smaller frugivores. We assessed the hypothesis that brown howler monkeys (Alouatta guariba clamitans) provide seed dispersal services for a wide assemblage of plant species in both small and large Atlantic forest fragments. Although fruit availability often decreases in small fragments compared with large ones, we predicted that brown howlers are efficient seed dispersers in quantitative and qualitative terms in both forest types given their high dietary flexibility. After a 36-month study period and 2,962 sampling hours, we found that howlers swallowed and defecated intact the vast majority of seeds (96%-100%) they handled in all study sites. Overall, they defecated ca. 315,600 seeds belonging to 98 species distributed in eight growth forms. We estimated that each individual howler dispersed an average of 143 (SD = 49) seeds >2 mm per day or 52,052 (SD = 17,782) seeds per year. They dispersed seeds of 58% to 93% of the local assemblages of fleshy-fruit trees. In most cases, the richness and abundance of seed species dispersed was similar between small and large fragments. However, groups inhabiting small fragments tended to disperse a higher diversity of seeds from rarely consumed fruits than those living in large fragments. We conclude that brown howlers are legitimate seed dispersers for most fleshy-fruit species of the angiosperm assemblages of their habitats, and that they might favor the regeneration of Atlantic forest fragments with the plentiful amount of intact seeds that they disperse each year. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5862440 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2018 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-58624402018-03-28 Quantity and quality of seed dispersal by a large arboreal frugivore in small and large Atlantic forest fragments Chaves, Óscar M. Bicca-Marques, Júlio César Chapman, Colin A. PLoS One Research Article Seed dispersal is a key process driving the structure, composition, and regeneration of tropical forests. Larger frugivores play a crucial role in community structuring by dispersing large seeds not dispersed by smaller frugivores. We assessed the hypothesis that brown howler monkeys (Alouatta guariba clamitans) provide seed dispersal services for a wide assemblage of plant species in both small and large Atlantic forest fragments. Although fruit availability often decreases in small fragments compared with large ones, we predicted that brown howlers are efficient seed dispersers in quantitative and qualitative terms in both forest types given their high dietary flexibility. After a 36-month study period and 2,962 sampling hours, we found that howlers swallowed and defecated intact the vast majority of seeds (96%-100%) they handled in all study sites. Overall, they defecated ca. 315,600 seeds belonging to 98 species distributed in eight growth forms. We estimated that each individual howler dispersed an average of 143 (SD = 49) seeds >2 mm per day or 52,052 (SD = 17,782) seeds per year. They dispersed seeds of 58% to 93% of the local assemblages of fleshy-fruit trees. In most cases, the richness and abundance of seed species dispersed was similar between small and large fragments. However, groups inhabiting small fragments tended to disperse a higher diversity of seeds from rarely consumed fruits than those living in large fragments. We conclude that brown howlers are legitimate seed dispersers for most fleshy-fruit species of the angiosperm assemblages of their habitats, and that they might favor the regeneration of Atlantic forest fragments with the plentiful amount of intact seeds that they disperse each year. Public Library of Science 2018-03-21 /pmc/articles/PMC5862440/ /pubmed/29561869 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0193660 Text en © 2018 Chaves et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Chaves, Óscar M. Bicca-Marques, Júlio César Chapman, Colin A. Quantity and quality of seed dispersal by a large arboreal frugivore in small and large Atlantic forest fragments |
title | Quantity and quality of seed dispersal by a large arboreal frugivore in small and large Atlantic forest fragments |
title_full | Quantity and quality of seed dispersal by a large arboreal frugivore in small and large Atlantic forest fragments |
title_fullStr | Quantity and quality of seed dispersal by a large arboreal frugivore in small and large Atlantic forest fragments |
title_full_unstemmed | Quantity and quality of seed dispersal by a large arboreal frugivore in small and large Atlantic forest fragments |
title_short | Quantity and quality of seed dispersal by a large arboreal frugivore in small and large Atlantic forest fragments |
title_sort | quantity and quality of seed dispersal by a large arboreal frugivore in small and large atlantic forest fragments |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5862440/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29561869 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0193660 |
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