The southernmost parakeet might be enhancing pollination of a dioecious conifer

GLEISER, GABRIELA; LAMBERTUCCI, SERGIO A.; SPEZIALE, KARINA L.; HIRALDO, FERNANDO; TELLA, JOSÉ L.; AIZEN, MARCELO A.

ECOLOGY

ECOLOGICAL SOC AMER

Año: 2017 vol. 98 p. 2969 - 2971

0012-9658

The endangered monkey puzzle tree, Araucaria araucana,is a dioecious conifer that, throughout its nativerange in northwest Patagonia (Argentina and Chile),holds sex-specific interactions with the southernmostparrot in the world, the austral parakeet Enicognathus ferrugineus.This parakeet is known to be an important consumerand disperser of A. araucana?s seeds (Tella et al.2016). During the pollination season, we observed parakeetsfeeding massively on A. araucana?s pollen-loadedmale cones (Fig. 1a).