Frugivores and seed dispersalAlejandro Estrada, T.H. Fleming A wide variety of plants, ranging in size from forest floor herbs to giant canopy trees, rely on animals to disperse their seeds. Typical values of the proportion of tropical vascular plants that produce fleshy fruits and have animal-dispersed seeds range from 50-90%, depending on habitat. In this section, the authors discuss this mutualism from the plant's perspective. Herrera begins by challenging the notion that plant traits traditionally interpreted as being the product of fruit-frugivore coevolution really are the outcome of a response-counter-response kind of evolutionary process. He uses examples of congeneric plants living in very different biotic and abiotic environments and whose fossilizable characteristics have not changed over long periods of time to argue that there exists little or no basis for assuming that gradualistic change and environmental tracking characterizes the interactions between plants and their vertebrate seed dispersers. A common theme that runs through the papers by Herrera, Denslow et at. , and Stiles and White is the importance of the 'fruiting environment' (i. e. the spatial relationships of conspecific and non-conspecific fruiting plants) on rates of fruit removal and patterns of seed rain. Herrera and Denslow et at. point out that this environment is largely outside the control of individual plant species and, as a result, closely coevolved interactions between vertebrates and plants are unlikely to evolve. |
Contents
4 | |
13 | |
Introduction | 81 |
Alejandro Estrada and Rosamond CoatesEstrada Frugivory in howling monkeys Alouatta | 93 |
the evolution of feeding strategies | 104 |
Timothy C Moermond Julie S Denslow Douglas J Levey and Eduardo Santana C | 137 |
Introduction | 167 |
relationships between | 187 |
Rodolfo Dirzo and César A Dominguez Seed shadows seed predation and the advantages | 237 |
it matters who defecates what where 251 | 273 |
Introduction | 307 |
Nicholas V L Brokaw Seed dispersal gap colonization and the case of Cecropia insignis | 323 |
Miguel MartinezRamos and Elena AlvarezBullya Seed dispersal gap dynamics and tree | 332 |
Nancy C Garwood Constraints on the timing of seed germination in a tropical forest | 347 |
Robin B Foster Javier Arce B and Tatzyana S Wachter Dispersal and the sequential plant | 357 |
John Terborgh Community aspects of frugivory in tropical forests | 371 |
E Raymond Heithaus Seed dispersal mutualism and the population density of Asarum cana | 199 |
J L Hamrick and M D Loveless The influence of seed dispersal mechanisms on the genetic | 211 |
Martin A Stapanian Seed dispersal by birds and squirrels in the deciduous forests of the United | 225 |
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Common terms and phrases
abundance agoutis animals Artibeus avian Barro Colorado Island bats behavior Biotropica birds Brokaw canopy capuchins Carollia Cecropia coevolution Costa defecations demographic density Denslow diet dispersal agents distance distribution dormancy dry season Ecol Ecology effect Estrada feeding Ficus Fleming foliar flags foraging frugivores fruit fruit crops fruit production fruit-eating fruiting traits gaps genetic structure germination givorous guanacaste guanacaste seeds guapinol seeds habitat Heithaus Herrera individuals ingested interactions Janzen Lauraceae lauraceous Leguminosae light-gaps Liomys mammals mice Moermond monkeys Moraceae neotropical number of seeds Oecologia Opuntia overstory patch patterns peccaries Piper plant species pods population pseudodefecations pulp rain forest reproductive result rodents samples seed dispersal seed predators seed removal seed shadows seedlings selection spatial squirrels Stapanian Stiles Sturnira survival Table tion Transect traps tree species treefall tropical forest tropical trees Tuxtlas understory unpubl variable variation Virola Wheelwright