Dataset Information

What makes a successful species? Traits facilitating survival in altered tropical forests.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Ongoing conversion, disturbance and fragmentation of tropical forests stress this ecosystem and cause the decline or disappearance of many species. Particular traits have been identified which indicate an increasing extinction risk of a species, but traits facilitating survival in altered habitats have mostly been neglected. Here we search for traits that make a species tolerant to disturbances, thus independent of pristine forests. We identify the fauna that have an increasing effect on the ecosystem and its functioning in our human-dominated landscapes.

Methods

We use a unique set of published data on the occurrences of 243 frog species in pristine and altered forests throughout the tropics. We established a forest dependency index with four levels, based on these occurrence data and applied Random Forest classification and binomial Generalized Linear Models to test whether species life history traits, ecological traits or range size influence the likelihood of a species to persist in disturbed habitats.

Results

Our results revealed that indirect developing species exhibiting a large range size and wide elevational distribution, being independent of streams, and inhabiting the leaf litter, cope best with modifications of their natural habitats.

Conclusion

The traits identified in our study will likely persist in altered tropical forest systems and are comparable to those generally recognized for a low species extinction risk. Hence our findings will help to predict future frog communities in our human-dominated world.

SUBMITTER: Hirschfeld M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5490239 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

What makes a successful species? Traits facilitating survival in altered tropical forests.

Hirschfeld Mareike M Rödel Mark-Oliver MO

BMC ecology 20170628 1

<h4>Background</h4>Ongoing conversion, disturbance and fragmentation of tropical forests stress this ecosystem and cause the decline or disappearance of many species. Particular traits have been identified which indicate an increasing extinction risk of a species, but traits facilitating survival in altered habitats have mostly been neglected. Here we search for traits that make a species tolerant to disturbances, thus independent of pristine forests. We identify the fauna that have an increasin ...[more]

PMID: 28659130

Similar Datasets

Project description:Tropical forest degradation is a global environmental issue. In degraded forests, seedling recruitment of canopy trees is vital for forest regeneration and recovery. We investigated how selective logging, a pervasive driver of tropical forest degradation, impacts canopy tree seedling recruitment, focusing on an endemic dipterocarp Dryobalanops lanceolata in Sabah, Borneo. During a mast-fruiting event in intensively logged and nearby unlogged forest, we examined four stages of the seedling recruitment process: seed production, seed predation, and negative density-dependent germination and seedling survival. Our results suggest that each stage of the seedling recruitment process is altered in logged forest. The seed crop of D. lanceolata trees in logged forest was one-third smaller than that produced by trees in unlogged forest. The functional role of vertebrates in seed predation increased in logged forest while that of non-vertebrates declined. Seeds in logged forest were less likely to germinate than those in unlogged forest. Germination increased with local-scale conspecific seed density in unlogged forest, but seedling survival tended to decline. However, both germination and seedling survival increased with local-scale conspecific seed density in logged forest. Notably, seed crop size, germination, and seedling survival tended to increase for larger trees in both unlogged and logged forests, suggesting that sustainable timber extraction and silvicultural practices designed to minimize damage to the residual stand are important to prevent seedling recruitment failure. Overall, these impacts sustained by several aspects of seedling recruitment in a mast-fruiting year suggest that intensive selective logging may affect long-term population dynamics of D. lanceolata. It is necessary to establish if other dipterocarp species, many of which are threatened by the timber trade, are similarly affected in tropical forests degraded by intensive selective logging.

Dataset Information

What makes a successful species? Traits facilitating survival in altered tropical forests.

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusion

Publications

What makes a successful species? Traits facilitating survival in altered tropical forests.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets