Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T11:26:12.188Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Seed caching by rodents favours seedling establishment of two palm species in a lowland Atlantic forest remnant

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2017

Caroline Marques Dracxler  and
Pierre-Michel Forget
Caroline Marques Dracxler*
Affiliation:
UMR 7179 MECADEV CNRS-MNHN, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Département Adaptations du vivant, 1 avenue du Petit Château, 91800 Brunoy, France
Pierre-Michel Forget
Affiliation:
UMR 7179 MECADEV CNRS-MNHN, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Département Adaptations du vivant, 1 avenue du Petit Château, 91800 Brunoy, France
*
*Corresponding author. Email: carolinemdsbio@yahoo.com.br
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

Scatter-hoarding by rodents is expected to benefit palm recruitment by allowing cached seeds to escape predation and to colonize new areas, but evidence that seedlings emerge from cached seeds is scarce. We aimed to assess to what extent seedling establishment of two palm species (Astrocaryum aculeatissimum and Attalea humilis) is favoured by seed caching by rodents in a large Atlantic Forest remnant. We mapped the location of conspecific seedlings within circular plots of 15-m radius around five adult individuals of each palm species, checking if seedlings established from dispersed (>2 m from parent palms) or non-dispersed seeds (0–2 m from parent palms), and from buried or unburied seeds. We found a total of 42 A. aculeatissimum seedlings and 16 A. humilis seedlings. Nearly all (98%) seedlings established from seeds dispersed away from parents (mainly located 10–15 m from parents), and 83% and 75% of seedlings of A. aculeatissimum and A. humilis, respectively, established from seeds buried in the soil. Results show that both palm species depend almost entirely on caching of seeds by rodents to establish seedlings. Our study suggests that checking for endocarps associated with established seedlings can accurately estimate the process behind seedling establishment, improving our understanding about the net outcome of seed caching for large-seeded palms.

Keywords

ArecaceaeAstrocaryumAttaleahoardingscatter-hoardersseed burialseed dispersalseedling recruitment
Type
Short Communication
Information
Journal of Tropical Ecology , Volume 33 , Issue 3 , May 2017 , pp. 228 - 231
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

LITERATURE CITED

ANDREAZZI, C. S., PIRES, A. S. & FERNANDEZ, F. A. S. 2009. Mamíferos e palmeiras neotropicais: interações em paisagens fragmentadas. Oecologia Brasiliensis 13:554–574.Google Scholar
ANDREAZZI, C. S., PIMENTA, C. S., PIRES, A. S., FERNANDEZ, F. A. S., OLIVEIRA-SANTOS, L. G. & MENEZES, J. F. S. 2012. Increased productivity and reduced seed predation favor a large-seeded palm in small Atlantic forest fragments. Biotropica 44:237–245.Google Scholar
ARAÚJO, R. M., DE SOUZA, M. B. & RUIZ-MIRANDA, C. R. 2008. Densidade e tamanho populacional de mamíferos cinegéticos em duas Unidades de Conservação do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. Iheringia 98:391–396.Google Scholar
BECK, H. 2005. Seed predation and dispersal by peccaries throughout the Neotropics and its consequences: a review and synthesis. Pp. 77–115 in Forget, P.-M., Lambert, J. E., Hulme, P. E. & Vander Wall, S. B. (eds). Seed fate: predation, dispersal and seedling establishment. CABI Publishing, Wallingford.Google Scholar
BREWER, S. W. & WEBB, M. A. H. 2001. Ignorant seed predators and factors affecting the seed survival of a tropical palm. Oikos 93:32–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
CRAMER, J. M., MESQUITA, R. C. G. & WILLIAMSON, G. B. 2007. Forest fragmentation differentially affects seed dispersal of large and small-seeded tropical trees. Biological Conservation 137:415–423.Google Scholar
DONATTI, C. I., GUIMARÃES, P. R. & GALETTI, M. 2009. Seed dispersal and predation in the endemic Atlantic rainforest palm Astrocaryum aculeatissimum across a gradient of seed disperser abundance. Ecological Research 24:1187–1195.Google Scholar
DRACXLER, C. M. 2012. Recrutamento de palmeiras em fragmentos de mata atlântica: entendendo as consequências das florestas vazias. MSc Dissertation, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.Google Scholar
DRACXLER, C. M., PIRES, A. S. & FERNANDEZ, F. A. S. 2011. Invertebrate seed predators are not all the same: seed predation by bruchine and scolytine beetles affects palm recruitment in different ways. Biotropica 43:8–11.Google Scholar
FORGET, P.-M. 1997. Effect of microhabitat on seed fate and seedling performance in two rodent-dispersed tree species in rain forest in French Guiana. Journal of Ecology 85:693–703.Google Scholar
GALETTI, M., DONATTI, C. I., PIRES, A. S., GUIMARÃES, P. R. & JORDANO, P. 2006. Seed survival and dispersal of an endemic Atlantic forest palm: the combined effects of defaunation and forest fragmentation. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 151:141–149.Google Scholar
HENDERSON, A., GALEANO, G. & BERNAL, R. 1995. Field guide to the palms of the Americas. Princeton University Press, Princeton. 352 pp.Google Scholar
JANSEN, P. A., BONGERS, F. & HEMERIK, L. 2004 Seed mass and mast seeding enhance dispersal by a neotropical scatter-hoarding rodent. Ecological Monographs 74:569–589.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
JANSEN, P. A., HIRSCH, B. T., EMSENS, W. J., ZAMORA-GUTIERREZ, V., WIKELSKI, M. & KAYS, R. 2012. Thieving rodents as substitute dispersers of megafaunal seeds. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 31:12610–12615.Google Scholar
JANZEN, D. H. 1970. Herbivores and the number of tree species in tropical forests. American Naturalist 104:501–528.Google Scholar
KLINGER, R. & REJMÁNEK, M. 2010. A strong conditional mutualism limits and enhances seed dispersal and germination of a tropical palm. Oecologia 162:951–963.Google Scholar
KUPREWICZ, E. K. 2015. Scatter hoarding of seeds confers survival advantages and disadvantages to large-seeded tropical plants at different life stages. PLoS ONE 10:e0124932.Google Scholar
PORTELA, R. C. Q. & SANTOS, F. A. M. 2011. Caracterização dos estádios ontogenéticos de três espécies de palmeiras: uma proposta de padronização para estudos de dinâmica populacional. Revista Brasileira de Botânica 34:523–535.Google Scholar
SMYTHE, N. 1989. Seed dispersal in the palm Astrocaryum standleyanum: evidence for dependence upon its seed dispersers. Biotropica 21:50–56.Google Scholar
SOUZA, A. F., MARTINS, F. R. & SILVA-MATOS, D. M. 2000. Detecting ontogenetic stages of the palm Attalea humilis in fragments of the Brazilian Atlantic forest. Canadian Journal of Botany 78:1227–1237.Google Scholar
TERBORGH, J. 1986. Keystone plant resources in the tropical forest. Pp. 330–344 in Soule, M. E. (ed.). Conservation biology: the science of scarcity and diversity. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland.Google Scholar
VANDER WALL, S. B. 1990. Food hoarding in animals. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. 453 pp.Google Scholar
WANG, B., YE, C.-Y., CANNON, C. H. & CHEN, J. 2013. Dissecting the decision making process of scatter-hoarding rodents. Oikos 122:1027–1034.Google Scholar
WRIGHT, S. J. & DUBER, H. C. 2001. Poachers and forest fragmentation alter seed dispersal, seed survival, and seedling recruitment in the palm Attalea butyracea, with implications for tropical tree diversity. Biotropica 33:583–595.Google Scholar
XIAO, Z. & KREBS, C. J. 2015. Modeling the costs and benefits of seed scatterhoarding to plants. Ecosphere 6:1–8.Google Scholar
ZWOLAK, R. & CRONE, E. E. 2012. Quantifying the outcome of plant-granivore interactions. Oikos 121:20–27.Google Scholar