Journal
ECOLOGY
Volume 95, Issue 7, Pages 1746-1758Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1890/13-1657.1
Keywords
apparent predation; Castanea dentata; context dependence; EM algorithm; imperfect detection; indirect interaction; masting; Quercus spp.; scatter-hoarding; seed dispersal; seed survival; trait-mediated interaction
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Funding
- NSF [DEB-0642434, DEB-0642594]
- Purdue Research Foundation Fellowship
- Bullard Fellowship from Harvard Forest, Harvard University
- Division Of Mathematical Sciences
- Direct For Mathematical & Physical Scien [1107046] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Interactions between plants and scatter-hoarding animals may shift from mutualism to predation as a function of the resources available to those animals. Because seed species differ in their nutrient content and defenses to predation, resource selection and cache management by scatter-hoarders, and thus seed fate, may also depend on the relative availability of different seed types. We tracked the fates of tagged Castanea dentata, Quercus alba, and Q. rubra seeds presented to rodents in pairwise combinations and found that C. dentata, which has moderate dormancy prior to germination, survived better in the presence of Q. alba (no dormancy) than with Q. rubra (longer dormancy). Decisions made by scatter-hoarders in response to the composition of available seed resources can alter the relationship between masting and seed dispersal effectiveness in individual tree species and may have influenced the evolution of asynchrony among species-specific masting patterns in temperate forests. In theory, preferential allocation of certain seed species to storage or consumption could also result in indirect apparent predation by one seed species on another.
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