Seed Dispersers, Seed Predators, and Browsers Act Synergistically as Biotic Filters in a Mosaic Landscape

Zamora, Regino; Matías, Luis

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0107385

Cited by 16 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 52 publications

(79 reference statements)

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“…Here, we took into account the transition between plant regeneration stages, seen as the result of filtering agents (e.g. frugivores, seed predators, abiotic factors causing seedling mortality; Zamora and Matías ) operating on successive demographic processes (fruit removal and seed dispersal, seedling establishment; Wang and Smith ). We assumed that these filters may modify the global distribution of interaction frequencies between plant and bird species from the stage of seed dispersal to that of seedling recruitment, and thus that these distribution changes are well represented by network metrics related to interaction diversity (Schleuning et al ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Incorporating seed fate into plant–frugivore networks increases interaction diversity across plant regeneration stages

Donoso

García

Rodríguez‐Pérez

et al. 2016

Oikos

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Plant -animal mutualistic interactions, such as pollination and seed dispersal, aff ect ecosystem functioning by driving plant population dynamics. However, little is known of how the diversity of interactions in these mutualistic networks determines plant regeneration dynamics. To fi ll this gap, interaction networks should not only account for the number of seeds dispersed by animals, but also for seed fate after dispersal. Here, we compare plant -animal networks at both the seed dispersal and seedling recruitment stage to evaluate how interaction diversity, represented by diff erent network metrics, changes throughout the process of plant regeneration. We focused on a system with six species of frugivorous birds and three species of fl eshy-fruited trees in the temperate secondary forest of the Cantabrian Range (northern Iberian Peninsula). We considered two plant cohorts corresponding to two fruiting years showing strong diff erences in fruit and frugivore abundance. Seed dispersal interactions were estimated from a spatially-explicit, fi eld-validated model predicting tree and bird species-specifi c seed deposition in diff erent microhabitats. Th ese interactions were further transformed into interactions at the seedling recruitment stage by accounting for plant-and microhabitat-specifi c seed fates estimated from fi eld sampling. We found that network interaction diversity varied across plant regeneration stages and cohorts, both in terms of the evenness and the number of paired interactions. Tree -bird interactions were more evenly distributed across species pairs at the recruitment stage than at the seed deposition stage, although some interactions disappeared in the seed-to-seedling transition for one plant cohort. Th e variations in interaction diversity were explained by between-plant diff erences in postdispersal seed fate and in inter-annual fruit production, rather than by diff erences between frugivores in seed deposition patterns. Th ese results highlight the need for integrating plant traits and disperser quality to predict the functional outcome of plant -animal mutualistic networks.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Incorporating seed fate into plant–frugivore networks increases interaction diversity across plant regeneration stages

Donoso

García

Rodríguez‐Pérez

et al. 2016

Oikos

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“…On the one hand, for adult plants, we estimated the overall surface area (m 2 ) that they covered under focal trees. On the other hand, for saplings, we counted the number of individuals and sorted them into two categories: (1) young saplings (immature individuals of 2–14 years) and (2) old saplings (pre‐reproductive individuals >14 years), the age of which were estimated by counting growth scars (in species where this was possible) or using plant size as a proxy (see Zamora & Matías, ). All plants were identified to the species level.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parasites structuring ecological communities: The mistletoe footprint in Mediterranean pine forests

Mellado

Zamora

2017

Functional Ecology

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The capacity of parasitic plants in structuring natural communities is increasingly recognized. These plants can affect the structure, composition and productivity of plant communities by modifying the competitive balance between hosts and non‐host species and by altering the quantity and quality of resources entering the soil. Despite the progress made in this field, there is still a lack of integrative studies showing the structuring capacity of parasitic plants in forest ecosystems, where their effect may be less detectable due to the long life span of the system. In this study we evaluate the long‐term impact of Viscum album subsp. austriacum on the woody‐plant community of a Mediterranean pineland. This mistletoe remains several years on the same host, exerting long‐lasting, spatially concentrated effects on community and ecosystem characteristics. Mistletoe concentrates zoochorous seeds and induces changes in the soil fertility and light availability beneath the canopy of parasitized trees, which have the potential to facilitate zoochorous–plant colonization, recruitment, and growth at the same time as it weakens the host. Here, we analyse whether mistletoe‐driven changes could result in a nucleus of zoochorous woody plants nourished by the abundant organic detritus accumulated under the host. We also analyse whether mistletoe effects can expand after host death. We selected unparasitized, parasitized, and dead parasitized Pinus nigra trees, in which we studied the joint effect of mistletoe‐mediated changes in soil nutrient and light availability, with the seed rain, seed predation, seedling establishment, plant recruitment, and plant growth. Light‐ and soil‐nutrient resources were greater under parasitized trees, and intensified after host death. The seed rain was maximum under parasitized trees, where seedling recruitment proved more likely. Sapling density, richness, and growth increased with the development of parasitism. Our findings show that V. album exerts a strong and lasting impact on the structure and dynamics of Mediterranean pinelands, with parasitized trees acting as centres for the establishment and growth of colonizing fleshy‐fruited woody species, which, over the long term, promote vegetation shifts by limiting dominant pine trees and facilitating less represented fleshy‐fruited shrubs. A http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2435.12907/suppinfo is available for this article.

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“…Forest succession depends on the presence and composition of advance regeneration in a forest stand, which in turn depends on biotic and abiotic filters along the pathway from seed to seedling [ 23 , 69 ]. We synthesized field data into SOEL, a flexible individual-based model of the early oak life cycle ( Fig 1 ) to quantify how key filters including seed predation, seed dispersal, and drought interact with silvicultural disturbance to influence the regeneration of oak.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simulation of oak early life history and interactions with disturbance via an individual-based model, SOEL

Kellner

2017

PLoS ONE

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Early tree life history and demography are driven by interactions with the environment such as seed predation, herbivory, light availability, and drought. For oak (Quercus) in the eastern United States, these interactions may contribute to oak regeneration failure. Numerous studies have examined the impact of individual factors (like seed predation) on the oak regeneration process, but less information is available on the relative and combined impacts of multiple intrinsic and extrinsic factors on early oak life history. We developed an individual-based, spatially explicit model to Simulate Oak Early Life history (SOEL). The model connects acorn survival, acorn dispersal, germination, seedling growth, and seedling survival submodels based on empirical data with an existing gap model (JABOWA). Using SOEL, we assessed the sensitivity of several metrics of oak regeneration to different parameters associated with early oak life history. We also applied the model in three individual case studies to assess: (1) how variable acorn production interacts with timing of timber harvest; (2) the effect of shelterwood harvest-induced differences on seed predation; and (3) the consequences of interactions between drought, seedling growth and survival, and timber harvest. We found that oak regeneration metrics including percent emergence, seedling density, and sapling density were most sensitive to the amount of acorn production, acorn caching probability by scatterhoarders, and seedling growth rates. In the case studies, we found that timing harvest to follow large acorn crops can increase the density of oak regeneration in the short term following harvest, at least under some conditions. Following midstory removal, lower weevil infestation probability and lower post-dispersal acorn survival resulted in a modest decline in seedling density, but the decline did not persist to the sapling life stage class. Drought frequency had a powerful negative impact on both growth and survival for individual seedlings, which resulted in large reductions in both seedling and sapling density. The case studies presented here represent only a few examples of what could be accomplished within the SOEL modeling framework. Further studies could focus on different early life history parameters, or connect the parameter values to different predictor variables based on field data.

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Seed Dispersers, Seed Predators, and Browsers Act Synergistically as Biotic Filters in a Mosaic Landscape

Cited by 16 publications

References 52 publications

Incorporating seed fate into plant–frugivore networks increases interaction diversity across plant regeneration stages

Incorporating seed fate into plant–frugivore networks increases interaction diversity across plant regeneration stages

Parasites structuring ecological communities: The mistletoe footprint in Mediterranean pine forests

Simulation of oak early life history and interactions with disturbance via an individual-based model, SOEL

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