Bat-fruit interactions are more specialized in shaded-coffee plantations than in tropical mountain cloud forest fragments

Forest disturbance causes specialization of plant-frugivore networks and jeopardizes mutualistic interactions through reduction of ecological redundancy. To evaluate how simplification of a forest into an agroecosystem affects plant-disperser mutualistic interactions, we compared bat-fruit interacti...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2015-05, Vol.10 (5), p.e0126084-e0126084
Main Authors: Hernández-Montero, Jesús R, Saldaña-Vázquez, Romeo A, Galindo-González, Jorge, Sosa, Vinicio J
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Abundance
Agricultural ecosystems
Agriculture
Altitude
Animals
Bats
Bats (Animals)
Behavior
Biodiversity
Biological research
Chiroptera
Chiroptera - physiology
Cloud forests
Coffea - growth & development
Coffee
Conservation
Conservation of Natural Resources
Dispersal
Dispersion
Ecology
Ecosystem
Ecosystem biology
Ecosystems
Environmental aspects
Environmental policy
Feeds
Flowers & plants
Food Chain
Forest management
Forests
Fragmentation
Fragments
Fruit
Fruits
Kitchen appliances
Landscape preservation
Mexico
Mutualism (Biology)
Observations
Physiology
Plant species
Plantations
Redundancy
Seed dispersal
Seed Dispersal - physiology
Seeds
Specialization
Sturnira
Symbiosis - physiology
Tropical Climate
Tropical forests
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Summary:Forest disturbance causes specialization of plant-frugivore networks and jeopardizes mutualistic interactions through reduction of ecological redundancy. To evaluate how simplification of a forest into an agroecosystem affects plant-disperser mutualistic interactions, we compared bat-fruit interaction indexes of specialization in tropical montane cloud forest fragments (TMCF) and shaded-coffee plantations (SCP). Bat-fruit interactions were surveyed by collection of bat fecal samples. Bat-fruit interactions were more specialized in SCP (mean H2 ' = 0.55) compared to TMCF fragments (mean H2 ' = 0.27), and were negatively correlated to bat abundance in SCP (R = -0.35). The number of shared plant species was higher in the TMCF fragments (mean = 1) compared to the SCP (mean = 0.51) and this was positively correlated to the abundance of frugivorous bats (R= 0.79). The higher specialization in SCP could be explained by lower bat abundance and lower diet overlap among bats. Coffee farmers and conservation policy makers must increase the proportion of land assigned to TMCF within agroecosystem landscapes in order to conserve frugivorous bats and their invaluable seed dispersal service.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0126084