Skip to content
Home
About Us
Resources
Profiles Metrics
Authors Directory
Institutions Directory
Top Authors
Top Institutions
Top Sponsors
AI Digest
Contact Us
Menu
Home
About Us
Resources
Profiles Metrics
Authors Directory
Institutions Directory
Top Authors
Top Institutions
Top Sponsors
AI Digest
Contact Us
Home
About Us
Resources
Profiles Metrics
Authors Directory
Institutions Directory
Top Authors
Top Institutions
Top Sponsors
AI Digest
Contact Us
Menu
Home
About Us
Resources
Profiles Metrics
Authors Directory
Institutions Directory
Top Authors
Top Institutions
Top Sponsors
AI Digest
Contact Us
Publication Details
AFRICAN RESEARCH NEXUS
SHINING A SPOTLIGHT ON AFRICAN RESEARCH
agricultural and biological sciences
Fruit characters as a basis of fruit choice and seed dispersal in a tropical forest vertebrate community
Oecologia, Volume 65, No. 3, Year 1985
Notification
URL copied to clipboard!
Description
Interactions between a large community of vertebrate frugivore-granivores (including 7 species of large canopy birds, 19 species of rodents, 7 species of ruminants, and 6 species of monkeys), and 122 fruit species they consume, were studied for a year in a tropical rainforest in Gabon. The results show how morphological characters of fruits are involved in the choice and partitioning of the available fruit spectrum among consumer taxa. Despite an outstanding lack of specificity between fruit and consumer species, consideration of simple morphological traits of fruits reveals broad character syndromes associated with different consumer taxa. Competition between distantly related taxa that feed at the same height is far more important than has been previously supposed. The results also suggest how fruit characters could have evolved under consumer pressure as a result of consumer roles as dispersers or seed predators. Our analyses of dispersal syndromes show that fruit species partitioning occurs more between mammal taxa than between mammals and birds. There is thus a bird-monkey syndrome and a ruminant-rodent-elephant syndrome. The bird-monkey syndrome includes fruit species on which there is no pre-dispersal seed predation. These fruits (berries and drupes) are brightly colored, have a succulent pulp or arillate seeds, and no protective seed cover. The ruminant-rodent-elephant syndrome includes species for which there is pre-dispersal predation. These fruits (all drupes) are large, dull-colored, and have a dry fibrous flesh and well-protected seeds. © 1985 Springer-Verlag.
Authors & Co-Authors
Gautier-Hion, Annie
France, Paris
Cnrs Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Gabon, Libreville
Institut de Recherche en Ecologie Tropicale
Duplantier, J. M.
France, Paris
Cnrs Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Gabon, Libreville
Institut de Recherche en Ecologie Tropicale
Quris, R.
France, Paris
Cnrs Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Gabon, Libreville
Institut de Recherche en Ecologie Tropicale
Feer, François
France, Paris
Cnrs Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Gabon, Libreville
Institut de Recherche en Ecologie Tropicale
Sourd, C.
France, Paris
Cnrs Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Gabon, Libreville
Institut de Recherche en Ecologie Tropicale
Decoux, J. P.
France, Paris
Cnrs Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Gabon, Libreville
Institut de Recherche en Ecologie Tropicale
Dübost, Gérard
France, Paris
Cnrs Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Gabon, Libreville
Institut de Recherche en Ecologie Tropicale
Emmons, Louise H.
France, Paris
Cnrs Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Gabon, Libreville
Institut de Recherche en Ecologie Tropicale
Érard, Christian
France, Paris
Cnrs Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Gabon, Libreville
Institut de Recherche en Ecologie Tropicale
Hecketsweiler, P.
France, Paris
Cnrs Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Gabon, Libreville
Institut de Recherche en Ecologie Tropicale
Moungazi, Augustin
France, Paris
Cnrs Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Gabon, Libreville
Institut de Recherche en Ecologie Tropicale
Roussilhon, C.
France, Paris
Cnrs Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Gabon, Libreville
Institut de Recherche en Ecologie Tropicale
Thiollay, Jean Marc
France, Paris
Cnrs Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Gabon, Libreville
Institut de Recherche en Ecologie Tropicale
Statistics
Citations: 538
Authors: 13
Affiliations: 2
Identifiers
Doi:
10.1007/BF00378906
ISSN:
00298549
e-ISSN:
14321939
Study Locations
Gabon