Frugivoría y remoción de frutos ornitócoros en fragmentos del bosque chaqueño de Córdoba (Argentina).

PONCE, AM; GRILLI, G.; GALETTO, L.

BOSQUE (VALDIVIA)

UNIV AUSTRAL CHILE

Lugar: Valdivia; Año: 2012 vol. 33 p. 33 - 41

0304-8799

Forests loss and habitat fragmentation due to agricultural activity could be related to different ecological processes such as bioticdispersion, as well as the maintenance of native plant diversity and exotic plant invasions. The objective of this work was to analyzefruit removal and frugivory by animals in the Chaco forest of Córdoba, in the context of landscape fragmentation. The study wascarried out in two continuous (> 300 ha) and two small forest fragments (< 5 ha). We randomly selected three to five individuals withornitochorous fruits at the sampling time (March-June, 2006). We counted the fruits in focal plants once a week during two month.Fruit survival probability (FSP) was used as an indicator of fruit removal. Ornitochorous plants included 15 species, mainly woody.The FSP for the plant community showed statistically significant differences between small fragments and continuous sites. FSPwas lower in continuous forests than in small fragments. FSP in the exotic bush was lower than in the native bush species. Contraryto bushes, FSP values in woody exotic species were higher than those for native species. Results suggest that the dispersion of theornitochorous fruits would be related to the process of fragmentation, but small fragments are used by birds as feeding sites, whichconfers them a high conservation value. This behavior of bird species would be important for the persistence and colonization of newsites for plant species with ornitochorous fruits, as well as for the conservation of small forests fragments disseminated within agroecosystemsof central Argentina.