CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Food resourceavailability regulates population levels and reproductive success in severalparrot species. Of the 59 threatened parrot species in the Neotropics,information on diet is available for only 34. Unsustainable forest management can eliminatetrees with seeds and fruits that are key food resources for parrots. TucumanAmazon Amazona tucumana is an endemicand threatened parrot speciescategorized as Vulnerable that occurs only in Andean montane forests of northwestern Argentina and southernBolivia; i.e., the Southern Yungas. The diet of Tucuman Amazon, food availability, specialization, key foodresources, and seasonal and spatial variation of food resources weredetermined. Feedingbouts of Tucuman Amazon were recorded from December 2007 to February 2009 in ElRey National Park. Availability of treeswith seeds, fruits or flowers that could be used by Tucuman Amazon asfood resources was assessed in phenology plots in cloud forest(high elevation humid forest) and transition forest (semi-deciduous forestlocated in the piedmont). Both forest types showed marked seasonality in availability of food resources for Tucuman Amazon. Sixty-six percent of thisspecies feeding bouts were on seeds.Podocarpus parlatorei is the most widely used tree species by TucumanAmazon in the cloud forest during the reproductive period and Acacia visco in the transition forest in the non-reproductive period. Podocarpusparlatorei could be critical for the development of Tucuman Amazonchicks, due to the high fat and oil content of its seeds and fruits. Tucuman Amazon used fewer food tree speciesduring the non-reproductive than the reproductive period, showing a greaterspecialization of food resources (i.e., narrower niche breadth). To ensure the production of fruits of P.parlatorei and A. visco, sustainable forest managementin the Southern Yungas should retain an adequate level of these key resources for Tucuman Amazon

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