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Non-active mammals are the main seed dispersers of the ancient Mediterranean palm Chamaerops humilis L. in the Balearic Islands: resuers of a lost seed dispersal service?
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Orientador(es)
Resumo(s)
Megafauna extinctions often lead to the disruption of plant-animal interactions, such
as the seed-disperser mutualisms, which might entail severe consequences for plant
populations and entire communities. Interestingly, the contemporary persistence of
anachronistic plant species might be possible thanks to surrogate dispersers or seed
dispersal “rescuers”. We know very little on how these relevant functional replacements
are contributing to the performance of present-day plant-frugivore networks. The dwarf
palm Chamaerops humilis L. is a Mediterranean endemism with fleshy fruits and typically
dispersed by mammals. Despite its ecological importance and wide distribution in some
of the Mediterranean islands, no information exists about its seed dispersal on these
depauperated-fauna systems. In this study, we aim at identifying and quantifying the
relative importance of introduced frugivores on the island of Mallorca (Balearic Islands),
where no native terrestrial mammals exist. Specifically, we assess for the first time the
seed dispersal effectiveness (SDE) for C. humilis on islands; we evaluate the quantitative
component by fecal and regurgitation sampling surveys, and the qualitative component
by means of seed germination experiments and seedling growth measures. Introduced
goats (Capra hircus L.) and pine martens (Martes martes L.) were the local mammal
fruit consumers of C. humilis identified in our study sites. Results suggest that goats
are much more important quantitatively than pine martens, due to the high number of
fruits handled in each foraging bout and their extremely high abundance on the island.
However, pine marten-ingested seeds showed the highest final seedling emergence
success and seedling growth, thus its qualitative contribution on C. humilis seed dispersal
is higher than that of goats. Overall, SDE was almost 9-fold higher for goats than for pine martens. We conclude that these two non-native mammal species are effective seed
dispersers of C. humilis in this and probably other Mediterranean islands, where humans
led to the extinction of its native seed dispersers, as it was probably the case of the
goat-like Myotragus balearicus in the Balearic Islands
Descrição
Original Research
Palavras-chave
anachronism goat megafauna extinction Myotragus balearicus pine marten seed dispersal effectiveness seedling emergence seedling growth
Contexto Educativo
Citação
Muñoz-Gallego R, Fedriani JM and Traveset A (2019) Non-native Mammals Are the Main Seed Dispersers of the Ancient Mediterranean Palm Chamaerops humilis L. in the Balearic Islands: Rescuers of a Lost Seed Dispersal Service? Front. Ecol. Evol. 7:161
Editora
Frontiers