Importance of plant and bird traits on the seed removal pattern of endangered trees across different forest patches in s
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Importance of plant and bird traits on the seed removal pattern of endangered trees across different forest patches in southeast China Ning Li1* , Shuai Zhang2, Yuan-Hao Ren1 and Zheng Wang2
Abstract Seed removal by birds has been recognized as an important part of seed dispersal process in patchy forest areas; however, few studies have focused on the contribution of both plant and bird traits to seed removal. In this study, field data of seed removal for Taxus chinensis was combined with the data of bird and plant traits for analysis. The relevant traits of plants and birds that influenced T. chinensis–bird interaction were identified in a remnant patchy forest in yew ecological garden, Fujian Province, southeast China. Twenty bird species were found to forage and remove the seeds of T. chinensis. The number of bird species varied in different forest patches; however, their contribution to seed removal showed no significant differences. Both bird and plant traits were found to affect seed removal. The seed removal rate was positively affected by bird traits, such as foraging frequency and wing length, but decreased with body weight. The plant traits, such as number of fruits, tree height, canopy density, and crown width, which are related to safe shelter and food resource conditions, increased the seed removal rate. Our results underline the functional importance of bird and plant traits in the seed removal from endangered trees in patchy forests. Therefore, future conservation strategies should prioritize and recognize the role of both plant and bird traits in seed dispersal in remnant patchy forests. Keywords: Seed removal, Bird trait, Plant trait, Hypsipetes leucocephalus, Patchy forest
Introduction Habitat fragmentation is one of the most important factors responsible for the decline of biodiversity and disruption of ecological functions (Taubert et al. 2018; Liu et al. 2019; Peters et al. 2019). In remnant habitat patches, most of the ecological functions (pollination, seed dispersal) are not only disrupted by loss of species, but also affected by remnant patch size and quality (Bomfim et al. 2018; Emer et al. 2018). Small size and low quality of remnant habitat patches cannot accommodate the persistence of large-bodied species and * Correspondence: [email protected] 1 Institute of Applied Ecology, Nanjing Xiaozhuang University, Nanjing 211171, Jiangsu, China Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
habitat specialist, thus disrupting seed dispersal service (Bregman et al. 2016; Donoso et al. 2016; Schupp et al. 2017). Seed removal is an important aspect of seed dispersal; it is performed by different frugivorous bird species based on their functional traits (Farwig et al. 2017; Schupp et al. 2017). Both bird and plant traits could affect seed removal pattern in a fragmented habitat (Schupp et al. 2017). Morphological and behavioral traits of bird species could shape their role in seed removal pattern (Pérez-Méndez et al. 2015; Li et al. 2019). Largebodied
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