Frugivory on Persea lingue in temperate Chilean forests: interactions between fruit availability and habitat fragmentation across multiple spatial scales |
| |
Authors: | Pablo M Vergara Cecilia Smith Cristian A Delpiano Ignacio Orellana Dafne Gho Inao Vazquez |
| |
Institution: | 1. Departamento de Ingeniería Geográfica, Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Av. Lib. B. O’Higgins 3363, Santiago, Chile 2. CEUS Llanquihue, USACH, Santiago, Chile 3. Instituto de Ecología y Biodiversidad (IEB), Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile 4. Instituto de Geociencias, Universidad Austral de Chile, Valdivia, Chile 5. Departamento de Ciencias Ambientales y Recursos Naturales Renovables, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile 6. Laboratorio de Ecología, Universidad de los Lagos, Osorno, Chile 7. Centro de Estudios en Biodiversidad de Chile (CEBCh), Osorno, Chile
|
| |
Abstract: | Habitat degradation and fragmentation are expected to reduce seed dispersal rates by reducing fruit availability as well as
the movement and abundance of frugivores. These deleterious impacts may also interact with each other at different spatial
scales, leading to nonlinear effects of fruit abundance on seed dispersal. In this study we assessed whether the degradation
and fragmentation of southern Chilean forests had the potential to restrict seed dispersal the lingue (Persea lingue) tree, a fleshy-fruited tree species. Of five frugivore bird species, the austral thrush (Turdus falcklandii) and the fire-eyed diucon (Xolmis pyrope) were the only legitimate seed dispersers as well as being the most abundant species visiting lingue trees. The results showed
little or no direct effect of habitat fragmentation on seed dispersal estimates, possibly because the assemblage of frugivore
birds was comprised habitat-generalist species. Instead, the number of fruits removed per focal tree exhibited an enhanced
response to crop size, but only in the more connected fragments. In the fruit-richer fragment networks, there was an increased
fragment-size effect on the proportion of fruits removed in comparison to fruit-poor networks in which the fragment size effect
was spurious. We suggest that such nonlinear effects are widespread in fragmented forest regions, resulting from the link
between the spatial scales over which frugivores sample resources and the spatial heterogeneity in fruiting resources caused
by habitat fragmentation and degradation. |
| |
Keywords: | |
本文献已被 SpringerLink 等数据库收录! |
|