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Frugivores and seed removal at Tetragastris altissima (Burseraceae) in a fragmented forested landscape of French Guiana

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 July 2005

Sandra Ratiarison
Affiliation:
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Département Ecologie et Gestion de la Biodiversité, UMR 5176 CNRS-MNHN, 4 Avenue du Petit Château, F-91800 Brunoy, France
Pierre-Michel Forget
Affiliation:
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Département Ecologie et Gestion de la Biodiversité, UMR 5176 CNRS-MNHN, 4 Avenue du Petit Château, F-91800 Brunoy, France
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Abstract

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We aimed at (1) determining how community-wide disruptions affect visitation by frugivores at trees and (2) estimating the impact of visitation shifts on seed fate following fruit consumption, especially seed removal. We compared the seed fate of a frugivore-dispersed tree species (Tetragastris altissima, Burseraceae) in four forested islands with that for a mainland continuous forest at Saint-Eugène, French Guiana. Tetragastris trees attracted opportunistic frugivore species available in the area, the most productive trees attracting more consumer species. Only primates, which are more susceptible to forest disturbances than birds and have low abilities to cross a non-forested matrix, were more frequent at Tetragastris on the mainland than on islands. Only opportunistic frugivorous primate species acting as low-efficiency seed dispersers were recorded. As a result, seed removal was equally low among habitats (nearly 26%), high percentages of seeds dropping below tree crowns. The scarcity of large-bodied specialist frugivorous primates throughout the landscape probably explained this low removal. Our results underline how difficult it is to generalize the cascading effects of disruptions in a frugivore community on tree seed fate, these effects likely varying according to the tree species and animal community involved.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
2005 Cambridge University Press