July 1, 2015Ecology
Hunting alters seedling functional trait composition in a Neotropical forest
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Implication
Ecological study reveals shifts toward abiotically dispersed, low-density wood species in hunted tropical forests, suggesting defaunation impairs long-term forest carbon storage.
Key Points
- Determine how vertebrate defaunation caused by hunting and experimental exclosures alters plant functional trait composition and seedling community dynamics in a Neotropical forest.
- Monitored functional trait responses across more than 30,000 woody seedlings in a lowland tropical moist forest.
- Compared seedling dynamics between hunted sites (depleted of terrestrial, volant, and arboreal vertebrates) and experimental exclosure plots (depleted of terrestrial vertebrates only).
- Evaluated shifts across six plant functional traits: seed dispersal mode, seed mass, leaf mass per area (LMA), leaf toughness, wood density, and herbivory levels.
- Loss of terrestrial vertebrates alone minimally altered plant traits, whereas hunting-driven loss of volant and arboreal vertebrates favored abiotically dispersed species, lianas, and lower wood-density trees over large-vertebrate dispersed species.
- Seed mass did not decline significantly in hunted sites because the parallel reduction of seed predators disproportionately favored large-seeded species, compensating for disperser loss.
- Defaunation shifts forest regeneration toward lianas and low wood-density species, with negative consequences for tropical forest carbon storage capacity.
Cite This Study
Kurten et al. (2015) studied this question.