Dataset Information

Contribution of Vouacapoua americana fruit-fall to the release of biomass in a lowland Amazon forest.

ABSTRACT: Fruit-fall provides the transfer of biomass and nutrients between forest strata and remains a poorly understood component of Amazon forest systems. Here we detail fruit-fall patterns including those of Vouacapoua americana a Critically Endangered timber species across 25 km² of lowland Amazon forest in 2016. We use multi-model comparisons and an ensemble model to explain and interpolate fruit-fall data collected in 90 plots (totaling 4.42 ha). By comparing patterns in relation to observed and remotely sensed biomass estimates we establish the seasonal contribution of V. americana fruit-fall biomass. Overall fruit-fall biomass was 44.84 kg ha^-1 month^-1 from an average of 44.55 species per hectare, with V. americana dominating both the number and biomass of fallen fruits (43% and 64%, number and biomass respectively). Spatially explicit interpolations provided an estimate of 114 Mg dry biomass of V. americana fruit-fall across the 25 km² area. This quantity represents the rapid transfer by a single species of between 0.01 and 0.02% of the overall above ground standing biomass in the area. These findings support calls for a more detailed understanding of the contribution of individual species to carbon and nutrient flows in tropical forest systems needed to evaluate the impacts of population declines predicted from short (

SUBMITTER: Chuma VJUR

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7900201 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Contribution of Vouacapoua americana fruit-fall to the release of biomass in a lowland Amazon forest.

Chuma Victor Juan Ulises Rodriguez VJUR Norris Darren D

Scientific reports 20210222 1

Fruit-fall provides the transfer of biomass and nutrients between forest strata and remains a poorly understood component of Amazon forest systems. Here we detail fruit-fall patterns including those of Vouacapoua americana a Critically Endangered timber species across 25 km<sup>2</sup> of lowland Amazon forest in 2016. We use multi-model comparisons and an ensemble model to explain and interpolate fruit-fall data collected in 90 plots (totaling 4.42 ha). By comparing patterns in relation to obse ...[more]

PMID: 33619342

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Project description:Terrestrial vertebrate frugivores constitute one of the major guilds in tropical forests. Previous studies show that the meso-scale distribution of this group is only weakly explained by variables such as altitude and tree basal area in lowland Amazon forests. For the first time we test whether seasonally limiting resources (water and fallen fruit) affect the dry season distribution in 25 species of terrestrial vertebrates. To examine the effects of the spatial availability of fruit and water on terrestrial vertebrates we used a standardized, regularly spaced arrangement of camera-traps within 25km2 of lowland Amazon forest. Generalized linear models (GLMs) were then used to examine the influence of four variables (altitude, distance to large rivers, distance to nearest water, and presence vs absence of fruits) on the number of photos on five functional groups (all frugivores, small, medium, large and very large frugivores) and on seven of the most abundant frugivore species (Cuniculus paca, Dasyprocta leporina, Mazama americana, Mazama nemorivaga, Myoprocta acouchy, Pecari tajacu and Psophia crepitans). A total of 279 independent photos of 25 species were obtained from 900 camera-trap days. For most species and three functional groups, the variation in the number of photos per camera was significantly but weakly explained by the GLMs (deviance explained ranging from 6.2 to 48.8%). Generally, we found that the presence of water availability was more important than the presence of fallen fruit for the groups and species studied. Medium frugivores, large-bodied frugivores, and two of the more abundant species (C. paca and P. crepitans) were recorded more frequently closer to water bodies; while none of the functional groups nor the most abundant species showed any significant relationship with the presence of fallen fruit. Two functional groups and two of the seven most common frugivore species assessed in the GLMs showed significant results with species-specific responses to altitude. Our findings provide a more detailed understanding of how frugivorous vertebrates cope with periods of water and fruit scarcity in lowland Amazon forests.

Dataset Information

Contribution of Vouacapoua americana fruit-fall to the release of biomass in a lowland Amazon forest.

Publications

Contribution of Vouacapoua americana fruit-fall to the release of biomass in a lowland Amazon forest.

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