Specialization on Guadua bamboo seeds by three bird species in the Atlantic Forest of Argentina

ARETA JI; BODRATI A; COCKLE K

BIOTROPICA

Año: 2009 p. 66 - 73

0006-3606

Most bamboos are semelparous. Their synchronous masting events occur on a cycle of 3–120 yr and represent an extremely pulsed resource for granivorous birds.Although many bird species feed occasionally on bamboo seeds, there are constraints to specializing on such a fluctuating resource and few bird species are knownto specialize on bamboo seeds. Three of these bird species are endemic to the Atlantic forest of South America: the purple-winged ground-dove Claravis godefrida,buff-fronted seedeater Sporophila frontalis, and Temminck’s seedeater Sporophila falcirostris. All three species are irregularly recorded in the province of Misiones,Argentina.We compared the temporal and spatial patterns of records of these birds in Misiones to masting events of the five common bamboos: yatev´o Guadua trinii,takuaruz´u Guadua chacoensis, takuap´ı Merostachys claussenii, pitinga Chusquea tenella, and takuaremb´o Chusquea ramosissima. All bird records coincided with timesand places where Guadua bamboos (G. trinii and G. chacoensis) were known or estimated to have seeds. None of the bird species occurred during masting events ofMerostachys or Chusquea, unless Guadua was also masting. We discuss relevant ecological and morphological features of the birds that might bear on their associationwith Guadua bamboos and that might be key to their conservation.