The spatial scale of plant-animal interactions: effects of resource availability and habitat structure

By Daniel García, Regino Zamora, G. Amico. 2011

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Plant–animal interactions are crucial nodes in the structure of communities and pivotal drivers of ecosystem functioning. Much of this relevance may depend on how animals cope with plant resources at different spatial scales. However, little is known about how and why different interactions perform at different scales in the same environmental setting. In this study we assess the spatial scales at which two plant–animal interactions operate and disentangle the environmental factors (plant resource availability vs. habitat structure) underpinning these operational scales. We studied two interactions with opposite (mutualistic vs. antagonistic) ecological effects on fleshy-fruited trees, frugivory and seed dispersal by birds, and the later predation by rodents on bird-dispersed seeds. Employing a standardized sampling, we covered three temperate ecosystems hosting structurally similar plant–frugivore–seed predator systems: Cantabrian forest, Mediterranean shrubland, and Patagonian forest. We sampled habitat...

Subfields: Ecology, Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/8dcea4f992f1e6fbaaf2995e302f9e0536caba24