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Determinants of fruit removal in Geonoma pauciflora , an understory palm of neotropical forests
Author(s) -
Pizo Marco Aurélio,
AlmeidaNeto Mário
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
ecological research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.628
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1440-1703
pISSN - 0912-3814
DOI - 10.1007/s11284-009-0599-0
Subject(s) - understory , biology , frugivore , competition (biology) , crop , botany , fructification , population , agronomy , ecology , canopy , habitat , demography , sociology
Competition for seed dispersers is supposedly a selective force that drives the evolution of plant reproductive traits. In the understory of tropical forests, such competition should be especially severe among bird‐dispersed plant species because (i) the production of copious fruit crops is limited by low light availability; (ii) there usually is a high density of fleshy fruited plants, and (iii) understory frugivorous birds are not abundant. In this paper, we took advantage of a high‐density population of Geonoma pauciflora , a bird‐dispersed palm species growing in the understory of the Brazilian Atlantic forest, to investigate the influence of plant traits and its immediate neighborhood on fruit removal. Intrinsic (crop and fruit sizes) and extrinsic traits (related to light availability) affected the fruit removal of G. pauciflora . Crop size had a greater influence than fruit size on the absolute number of fruits removed, whereas none of the investigated traits influenced decisively fruit removal efficiency (i.e., the proportion of an individual's crop removed). The influence of light availability was mostly indirect, through its positive influence on fruit production. A significant positive spatial autocorrelation in removal efficiency occurred among neighboring plants within a 7‐m radius, which is indicative of facilitation among neighboring individuals. The consequence of such positive spatial autocorrelation in removal efficiency for clonal plants such as G. pauciflora is that by attracting a frugivore a given ramet may promote the removal of fruits of other ramets, thus enhancing the reproductive output of the genet as a whole.