Seasonal Diet and Seed Dispersal by Sloth Bears Melursus ursinus in Western India

Large omnivorous mammals can play multifunctional roles in tropical ecosystems by linking trophic processes with plant regeneration dynamics, yet their contributions remain poorly understood in seasonally dry forests. We investigated seasonal variation in sloth bear ( Melursus ursinus ) diet and their potential role as seed dispersers in a semiarid deciduous forest of the Aravalli mountains in western India. Diet was assessed through scat analysis in the winter and summer seasons from November 2020 to October 2021, and seed dispersal effectiveness was evaluated using germination and survival experiments on seeds recovered from scats and those collected directly from plants. Sloth bear diet exhibited pronounced seasonal shifts, with fruits dominating winter diets and insects constituting a larger proportion during summer. Fruit consumption was selective and not consistently proportional to availability, indicating preferential foraging. Seeds of six plant species remained viable after gut passage, with germination success varying among species. For four species, post‐germination survival of seedlings from scat seeds and from plant‐collected seeds was not significantly different, while seedlings from plant‐collected seeds of Grewia flavescens and from scat seeds of Diospyros melanoxylon survived better. Germination of the nonnative invasive shrub Lantana camara occurred only from scat‐derived seeds. Our findings demonstrate that sloth bears function as selective seed dispersers, including enhancing the germination success of an invasive shrub in dry deciduous forests. Our findings highlight the importance of increasing focus on how large omnivores influence plant regeneration thereby potentially affecting landscape‐level vegetation dynamics in tropical seasonal ecosystems.