Diet, Keystone Resources and Altitudinal Movement of Dwarf Cassowaries in Relation to Fruiting Phenology in a Papua New Guinean Rainforest

Wright, Debra D.

doi:10.1007/1-4020-3833-x_11

Cited by 23 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…may occasionally reach megafaunal size, and New Guinea supports two megafaunal cassowary species (Wright 2005). The late Pleistocene fauna of the New Guinea highlands also included several now-extinct marsupials of megafaunal size, including large browsing kangaroos (Protemnodon spp.)…”

Section: New Guineamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Pigs and bovids disperse small seeds in the same way as deer, but their role, if any, in dispersing larger seeds is not known. The extinct megafaunal marsupials of New Guinea probably dispersed some seeds in the same way as extant grazing and browsing megaherbivores (Webb 2008), but any role they had in the dispersal of large seeds is probably covered by the extant cassowaries, which still disperse seeds in large fruits (<6 cm) for long distances (Wright 2005;Bradford et al 2008). Orangutans are the largest arboreal frugivores and eat fruits of many different types, including the biggest species available.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Altered Ecologies: Fire, climate and human influence on terrestrial landscapes: Terra Australis 32

Haberle¹,

Stevenson²,

Prebble³

2010

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terra australis 32Terra Australis reports the results of archaeological and related research within the south and east of Asia, though mainly Australia, New Guinea and island Melanesia -lands that remained terra australis incognita to generations of prehistorians. Its subject is the settlement of the diverse environments in this isolated quarter of the globe by peoples who have maintained their discrete and traditional ways of life into the recent recorded or remembered past and at times into the observable present.Since the beginning of the series, the basic colour on the spine and cover has distinguished the regional distribution of topics as follows: ochre for Australia, green for New Guinea, red for South-East Asia and blue for the Pacific Islands. From 2001, issues with a gold spine will include conference proceedings, edited papers and monographs which in topic or desired format do not fit easily within the original arrangements. All volumes are numbered within the same series. Copyright of the text remains with the contributors/authors, 2009. This book is copyright in all countries subscribing to the Berne convention. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be made to the publisher. Among saltbush greyer than seaweed we boardwalk the yeasting waves of the old golden-perch pond. List of volumes in Terra AustralisRabbit dung dots a lake bottom dry since their coming -only once, last century, after seven inches of rain a farmer had to rescue his sheep by boat.The roo bounces down-slope, a brown branch crackling.The professor's eye, noting the local runoff and what the westerlies do, observes seas that rush in and out of a continent's middle, salt lakes spreading and emptying, hills pimpling up and down with cartoon-like speed, or gullying themselves into extinction, rainforests and deserts zipping back and forth like Tom and Jerry. A human mouse plague swiftly swarms, perhaps soon gone.Impermanent planet. Impermanent surface. All under air and water. The lunette is a wave, a dumper of sand, a collapsing tower in the mad rabbit years when its top blew off and old bones winked through, with a vault's worth of fine stone cores.Once so simply mislaid in sand, now so obligingly sluiced out to the un-subincised world that smiles at stone knives. terra australis 32Altered Ecologies: Fire, climate and human influence on terrestrial landscapes v You might as well offer your table knife to a carpenter.Cane grass and the Dreamtime's stone fight the eroding rivulets together. In today's rare downpour each lost core, or blunted scraper crowns some tiny eroding hillock, plops its anchor in the dissolving silts.The bettong whose skin took off the stone tool's edge has vanished -sacrifice to future fertility.Through the softening soil Homo sapiens's skeleton bumps up like a carp's back.Waits for the wind to shave it off in pieces.A D-section and a ti...

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Section: New Guineamentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Altered Ecologies: Fire, climate and human influence on terrestrial landscapes: Terra Australis 32

Haberle¹,

Stevenson²,

Prebble³

2010

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“…The distribution and abundance of food resources, in particular, influences the movements of many birds (Levey 1988). The foraging efficiency of nectarivores and frugivores is also affected by the temporal pattern of availability of flowers and fruit: if the occurrence of nectar and fruit are temporally and spatially predictable, animals may retain this information and visit plants with available resources without random, undirected searching (Wright 2005). In South Australia, A. quandang (Reid 1990) exhibited continuous production of ripe fruit in local plant communities owing to overlap in successive annual fruit crops, whereas the fruiting and flowering by Wireleaf Mistletoe and Box Mistletoe at each of our study sites was fairly distinct.…”

Section: Temporal Redundancy Of Mistletoementioning

confidence: 99%

Do bird species richness and community structure vary with mistletoe flowering and fruiting in Western Australia?

Napier

Mather²,

McWhorter

et al. 2014

Emu - Austral Ornithology

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Abstract. Worldwide, mistletoes act as a keystone resource, providing food (nectar, fruit and foliage) and structural (nesting sites) resources to hundreds of fauna species. In Australia, loranthaceous mistletoes depend on birds for pollination and dispersal, and provide important nectar and fruit resources to a large number of nectarivorous and frugivorous species of bird. We investigated whether avian species richness and community structure varies with flowering and fruiting of two common mistletoe species (Loranthaceae : Wireleaf Mistletoe, Amyema preissii; and Box Mistletoe, A. miquelii), conducting monthly surveys of both birds and mistletoes over 1 year at five sites in south-western Western Australia (WA). Flowering and fruiting periods were distinct and differed both among sites and between mistletoe species. Nectar and ripe fruit were available for up to 5 months (Box Mistletoe) or 6-7 months (Wireleaf Mistletoe) at individual sites, but were available every month of the year across all sites. The presence of fruiting, but not flowering, mistletoe was associated with changes in bird community structure. Mistletoebirds (Dicaeum hirundinaceum) were significantly more likely to be recorded during months when ripe mistletoe fruit was present and the overall bird species richness was higher for these survey months. Mistletoes provide important resources, but further investigation is required to assess whether they act as a keystone resource in south-western WA.

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“…No other individual animal in Australia's tropical forests is capable of seed dispersal of this magnitude. The large majority of the cassowary's diet consists of fleshy fruit (Pratt 1982, Stocker & Irvine 1983, Wright 2005) and it therefore potentially consumes and disperses more than 1500 plant species within its Australian range (Hyland et al 2003).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Cassowary diet has been intensively studied previously in upland and highland forest in Papua New Guinea (Pratt 1982, Wright 2005) and lowland rain forest in Australia (Crome 1976, Stocker & Irvine 1983, Bentrupperbäumer 1998). Due to extensive clearing of these lowland forests, there are few continuous, lowland forested areas remaining in Australia's wet tropics (Winter et al 1987) and often large distances occur between these areas.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Diet and Dietary Preferences of the Southern Cassowary (Casuarius casuarius) in North Queensland, Australia

2007

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We investigated the diet of the southern cassowary (Casuarius casuarius) by identifying the seeds and fruits in fecal droppings encountered on a set of transects over 2 yr in upland rain forest in the wet tropics of North Queensland. A total of 198 droppings containing 56 plant species were found. We surveyed fleshy fruit availability over the subsequent 68 mo on transects in the same area to ascertain fruiting patterns in the study area. The number of droppings found each month did not correspond to the pattern of available fruit biomass. There was no relationship between the fruit traits of moisture content, flesh to seed mass ratio, color, or crop size to contribution of a species to the diet. During the lean fruiting season (May–July) cassowaries relied more on species that fruited continuously throughout the year as they were significantly over‐represented in droppings, while annual fruiting species were under‐represented. During months of high fruit availability (October–December), continuously fruiting species were still over‐represented in the diet but became less important while annual and biennial species became more important. Significantly more species with large fruit and large seeds appeared in the diet than expected and we confirm that the cassowary contributes to the continued dispersal of these species over long distances and in large quantities.

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Diet, Keystone Resources and Altitudinal Movement of Dwarf Cassowaries in Relation to Fruiting Phenology in a Papua New Guinean Rainforest

Cited by 23 publications

References 42 publications

Altered Ecologies: Fire, climate and human influence on terrestrial landscapes: Terra Australis 32

Altered Ecologies: Fire, climate and human influence on terrestrial landscapes: Terra Australis 32

Do bird species richness and community structure vary with mistletoe flowering and fruiting in Western Australia?

Diet and Dietary Preferences of the Southern Cassowary (Casuarius casuarius) in North Queensland, Australia

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