Selective logging reduces body size in omnivorous and frugivorous tropical forest birds

Messina, Simone; Tomassi, Suzanne; Cosset, Cindy C.P.; Benedick, Suzan; Eens, Marcel; Edwards, David P.

doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2021.109036

Cited by 12 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 62 publications

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“…In these systems, the effects of warming are challenging to disentangle from competing pressures on bird morphology. For example, smaller bird size was associated with habitat degradation ( 23 ) while wild landscapes are increasingly transformed for anthropogenic use ( 24 ). For migratory birds, shifts in distribution and phenology may affect individuals observed at a specific monitoring point, while links to climate are further complicated by the fact that migrants are exposed to conditions in a wide (and often unknown) geographic area with possibly disparate climate trends ( 25 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Morphological consequences of climate change for resident birds in intact Amazonian rainforest

et al. 2021

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Morphological consequences of climate change for resident birds in intact Amazonian rainforest

et al. 2021

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“…Thus, the proportion of habitat patches experiencing warmer temperatures will increase as fragmentation increases. This can lead to smaller animal body sizes for the reasons outlined above (Boyle et al, 2021; Messina et al, 2021; Tuff et al, 2019). Additionally, fragmentation increases the distance between habitat patches suitable for consuming resources or for mating and breeding.…”

Section: Theoretical Framework Of Anthropogenic Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This can lead to smaller animal body sizes for the reasons outlined above (Boyle et al, 2021;Messina et al, 2021;Tuff et al, 2019).…”

Section: Anthropogenic Fragmentationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Dotted lines represent decrease in response variable, dashed lines represent increase, and solid lines represent mixed effects (increase, decrease, or no change). 1 Schuur (2003); 2 Yuan et al (2021); 3 Bergmann (1847); 4 Gillooly et al (2001); 5 McDiarmid (1968); 6 Nevo (1973); 7 Rosenzweig (1968a); 8 Lundberg and Persson (1993); 9 Oro et al (2013); 10 Blackburn et al (2018); 11 Hillaert, Hovestadt, et al (2018); 12 Hillaert, Vandegehuchte, et al (2018); 13 Carpenter and Savage (2021); 14 Schulte‐Hostedde et al (2018); 15 Murray et al (2016); 16 Ottoni et al (2009); 17 Plummer et al (2013); 18 Imhoff et al (2010); 19 Oke (1982); 20 Messina et al (2021); 21 Tuff et al (2019); 22 Han et al (2014); 23 Shepherd (2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Body size responses to the combined effects of climate and land use changes within an urban framework

Martin

Sheridan

2022

Global Change Biology

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Alterations in body size can have profound impacts on an organism's life history and ecology with long-lasting effects that span multiple biological scales. Animal body size is influenced by environmental drivers, including climate change and land use change, the two largest current threats to biodiversity. Climate warming has led to smaller body sizes of many species due to impacts on growth (i.e., Bergmann's rule and temperature-size rule). Conversely, urbanization, which serves as a model for investigating the effects of land use changes, has largely been demonstrated to cause size increases, but few studies have examined the combined influences of climate and land use changes on organism size. We present here the background theory on how each of these factors is expected to influence body size, summarize existing evidence of how size has recently been impacted by climate and land use changes, and make several recommendations to guide future research uniting these areas of focus. Given the rapid pace of climate change and urbanization, understanding the combined effects of climate and land use changes on body size is imperative for biodiversity preservation.

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“…We tested the hypothesis that larger frugivores, which often prefer more pristine habitat in many tropical systems (Emer et al, 2018;Messina et al, 2021), would avoid forest edges, reducing overall frugivore diversity, and that smaller-bodied frugivores would be more abundant in edge habitat because of habitat preferences and/or competitive release (Pfeifer et al, 2017;Püttker et al, 2019). If larger-bodied frugivores are less common near edge habitat, we predicted that this would be reflected by an overall smaller size of seeds dispersed by frugivores in edge habitat.…”

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Simplified Communities of Seed-Dispersers Limit the Composition and Flow of Seeds in Edge Habitats

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Edge effects, driven by human modification of landscapes, can have critical impacts on ecological processes such as species interactions, with cascading impacts on biodiversity as a whole. Characterizing how edges affect vital biotic interactions such as seed dispersal by frugivores is important for better understanding potential mechanisms that drive species coexistence and diversity within a plant community. Here, we investigated how differences between frugivore communities at the forest edge and interior habitats of a diverse tropical rainforest relate to patterns of animal-mediated seed dispersal and early seedling recruitment. We found that the lemur communities across the forest edge-interior gradient in this system showed the highest species richness and variability in body sizes at intermediate distances; the community of birds showed the opposite pattern for species richness. Three large-bodied frugivores, known to be effective dispersers of large seeds, tended to avoid the forest edge. As result, the forest edges received a lower rate of animal-mediated seed dispersal compared to the interior habitats. In addition, we also found that the seeds that were actively dispersed by animals in forest edge habitats were smaller in size than seeds dispersed in the forest interior. This pattern was found despite a similarity in seed size of seasonally fruiting adult trees and shrubs between the two habitats. Despite these differences in dispersal patterns, we did not observe any differences in the rates of seedling recruitment or seed-size distribution of successful recruit species. Our results suggest that a small number of frugivores may act as a potential biotic filter, acting on seed size, for the arrival of certain plant species to edge habitats, but other factors may be more important for driving recruitment patterns, at least in the short term. Further research is needed to better understand the potential long-term impacts of altered dispersal regimes relative to other environmental factors on the successional dynamics of edge communities. Our findings are important for understanding potential ecological drivers of tree community changes in forest edges and have implications for conservation management and restoration of large-seeded tree species in disturbed habitats.

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Selective logging reduces body size in omnivorous and frugivorous tropical forest birds

Cited by 12 publications

References 62 publications

Morphological consequences of climate change for resident birds in intact Amazonian rainforest

Morphological consequences of climate change for resident birds in intact Amazonian rainforest

Body size responses to the combined effects of climate and land use changes within an urban framework

Simplified Communities of Seed-Dispersers Limit the Composition and Flow of Seeds in Edge Habitats

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