The importance of individual movement and feeding behaviour for long-distance seed dispersal by red deer: a data-driven model.
Animal behaviour
Animal personalities
Cervus elaphus
Endozoochory
Intra-specific variation
Long-distance dispersal
Seed dispersal
Seed dispersal by animals
Seedling emergence
Journal
Movement ecology
ISSN: 2051-3933
Titre abrégé: Mov Ecol
Pays: England
ID NLM: 101635009
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
2020
2020
Historique:
received:
24
05
2020
accepted:
09
10
2020
entrez:
2
11
2020
pubmed:
3
11
2020
medline:
3
11
2020
Statut:
epublish
Résumé
Long-distance seed dispersal (LDD) has strong impacts on the spatiotemporal dynamics of plants. Large animals are important LDD vectors because they regularly transport seeds of many plant species over long distances. While there is now ample evidence that behaviour varies considerably between individual animals, it is not clear to what extent inter-individual variation in behaviour alters seed dispersal by animals. We study how inter-individual variation in the movement and feeding behaviour of one of Europe's largest herbivores (the red deer, The studied deer dispersed viable seeds of at least 62 plant species. Deer individuals varied significantly in per-seed LDD probability and seed loads. However, more mobile animals did not disperse more or less seeds than less mobile ones. Plant species also did not differ significantly in the relationship between per-seed LDD probability and seed load. Yet plant species differed in how their seed load was distributed across deer individuals and in time, and this caused their LDD potential to differ more than twofold. For several plant species, we detected non-random associations between per-seed LDD probability and seed load that generally increased LDD potential. Inter-individual variation in movement and feeding behaviour means that certain deer are substantially more effective LDD vectors than others. This inter-individual variation reduces the reliability of LDD and increases the sensitivity of LDD to the decline of deer populations. Variation in the dispersal services of individual animals should thus be taken into account in models in order to improve LDD projections.
Sections du résumé
BACKGROUND
BACKGROUND
Long-distance seed dispersal (LDD) has strong impacts on the spatiotemporal dynamics of plants. Large animals are important LDD vectors because they regularly transport seeds of many plant species over long distances. While there is now ample evidence that behaviour varies considerably between individual animals, it is not clear to what extent inter-individual variation in behaviour alters seed dispersal by animals.
METHODS
METHODS
We study how inter-individual variation in the movement and feeding behaviour of one of Europe's largest herbivores (the red deer,
RESULTS
RESULTS
The studied deer dispersed viable seeds of at least 62 plant species. Deer individuals varied significantly in per-seed LDD probability and seed loads. However, more mobile animals did not disperse more or less seeds than less mobile ones. Plant species also did not differ significantly in the relationship between per-seed LDD probability and seed load. Yet plant species differed in how their seed load was distributed across deer individuals and in time, and this caused their LDD potential to differ more than twofold. For several plant species, we detected non-random associations between per-seed LDD probability and seed load that generally increased LDD potential.
CONCLUSIONS
CONCLUSIONS
Inter-individual variation in movement and feeding behaviour means that certain deer are substantially more effective LDD vectors than others. This inter-individual variation reduces the reliability of LDD and increases the sensitivity of LDD to the decline of deer populations. Variation in the dispersal services of individual animals should thus be taken into account in models in order to improve LDD projections.
Identifiants
pubmed: 33133610
doi: 10.1186/s40462-020-00227-5
pii: 227
pmc: PMC7594291
doi:
Types de publication
Journal Article
Langues
eng
Pagination
44Informations de copyright
© The Author(s) 2020.
Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts
Competing interestsNo competing interests.
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