INIBIOMA   20415
INSTITUTO DE INVESTIGACIONES EN BIODIVERSIDAD Y MEDIOAMBIENTE
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
artículos
Título:
Neighborhood effects on seed dispersal by frugivores: testing theory with a mistletoe-marsupial system in Patagonia
Autor/es:
MORALES, JM; RIVAROLA, MD; AMICO, GC; CARLO, T
Revista:
ECOLOGY
Editorial:
ECOLOGICAL SOC AMER
Referencias:
Año: 2012 vol. 93 p. 741 - 748
ISSN:
0012-9658
Resumen:
The outcome of the dispersal process in zoochorous plants is largely
determined by the behavior of frugivorous animals. Recent simulation
studies have found that fruit removal rates and mean dispersal distances
are strongly affected by fruiting plant neighborhoods. We empirically
tested the effects of conspecific fruiting plant neighborhoods, crop
sizes, and plant accessibility on fruit removal rates and seed dispersal
distances of a mistletoe species exclusively dispersed by an arboreal
marsupial in Northern Patagonia. Moreover, in this study we overcome
technical limitations in the empirical estimation of seed dispersal by
using a novel 15N stable isotope enrichment technique together with
Bayesian mixing models that allowed us to identify dispersed seeds from
focal plants without the need of extensive genotyping. We found that, as
predicted by theory, plants in denser neighborhoods had greater fruit
removal and shorter mean dispersal distances than more isolated plants.
Furthermore, the probability of dispersing seeds farther away decreased
with neighborhood density. Larger crop sizes resulted in larger fruit
removal rates and smaller probabilities of longer distance dispersal.
The interplay between frugivore behavioral decisions and the spatial
distribution of plants could have important consequences for plant
spatial dynamics