Secondary removal of seeds dispersed by gibbons (Hylobates lar) in a tropical dry forest in Thailand

Information

Digital Gems > Biodiversity Library of Southeast Asia

Subject: Ants
Gibbons -- Thailand
Hylobate -- Thailand
Rats -- Thailand
Rodents -- Thailand
Seed dispersal by animals -- Thailand
Seed dispersal by ants -- Thailand
Seeds -- Dispersal -- Thailand

Keyword: Gibbons
Post-dispersal seed removal
rodents
tropical dry forest
habitat type

Abstract: Many animal-dispersed seeds are subject to post-dispersal removal by vertebrate and invertebrate organisms resulting in further dispersal or predation. A field experiment was carried out to study seed removal of six gibbondispersed seed species in a tropical dry forest in central Thailand during the wet season of 2016 and early dry season of 2017. We collected seeds from the defecations of four groups of white-handed gibbon (Hylobates lar), of which two groups lived in an evergreen forest habitat and two groups in a mosaic habitat composed of mixeddeciduous forest and dry-dipterocarp forest. We used camera traps to monitor seed removal activities of the rodents. Rodents had the most impact on the seeds dispersed by the gibbons. Maxomys surifer, the red-spiny rat was the most abundant ground-dwelling rodent species, and accounted for the greatest proportion of seed removal events, followed by Leopoldamys sabanus, the long-tailed giant rat, which was less abundant. The study also found that invertebrates, in particular ants, were important in post-dispersal seed removal. Seed removal by both rodents and invertebrates as well as by M. surifer alone did not differ significantly between the two habitat types. Further and longer-termed study is suggested to understand the competitive relationship between the rodents and invertebrates as well as the impacts habitat type and seasonality on seed fates.