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Fire and logging alter plant-frugivore interactions in Amazonia over decadal time-scales
  • +7
  • Liana Rossi,
  • Carine Emer,
  • Alexander Lees,
  • Erika Berenguer,
  • Jos Barlow,
  • Joice Ferreira,
  • Filipe França,
  • Yan Ramos,
  • Paulo Tavares,
  • Marco Aurélio Pizo
Liana Rossi
Universidade Estadual Paulista

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Carine Emer
Universidade Estadual Paulista
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Alexander Lees
Manchester Metropolitan University
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Erika Berenguer
University of Oxford
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Jos Barlow
Lancaster University
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Joice Ferreira
Embrapa Amazônia Oriental
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Filipe França
University of Bristol
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Yan Ramos
Aiuká Consultoria em Soluções Ambientais
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Paulo Tavares
Universidade Federal do Pará
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Marco Aurélio Pizo
Universidade Estadual Paulista
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Abstract

Amazonian forests are vulnerable to a wide range of human threats, such as selective logging and forest fires. The capacity of Amazonian forests to recover from human-disturbances depends, among other factors, on the persistence of frugivory interactions leading to essential ecological functions, like seed dispersal. Although important, little is known about frugivory interactions in the Amazonian forests. Most studies focus on a single or a limited set of similar species; neither studies include both arboreal and terrestrial frugivores. Moreover, most studies have not studied the impact of human-disturbances. We investigated the impacts of selective logging and forest fires on frugivory interactions in Amazonian forests. We sampled interactions at the community level, surveying arboreal and terrestrial frugivores across 17 forest transects with variable disturbance histories. We found that undisturbed forests held a significantly higher richness of species and interactions distinct from those of interactions human-disturbed forests. Logged forests burned 17 years previously held substantially lower richness of species and interactions, and the interaction composition was almost entirely dissimilar to those of undisturbed forests. Logged (unburned) and logged forests burned three years previously also differed substantially in their frugivory interaction composition, but overall richness and frugivory interactions richness was similar. However, neither selective logging nor forest fires changed the structural properties of frugivory networks, which are highly modular, moderately specialised and poorly connected and nested. β-diversity of plant and frugivore species as well as their interactions was high among all transects, mainly due to the high spatial turnover. Our study provides the first empirical evidence of the negative effects of fires combined with selective logging on frugivory interactions in tropical forests, highlighting the long time-scales required to evaluate impacts and reestablish ecological processes.
14 Apr 2024Submitted to Oikos
24 Apr 2024Reviewer(s) Assigned
01 Jun 2024Review(s) Completed, Editorial Evaluation Pending
28 Jun 2024Editorial Decision: Revise Major
28 Aug 20241st Revision Received
29 Aug 2024Submission Checks Completed
29 Aug 2024Assigned to Editor
29 Aug 2024Review(s) Completed, Editorial Evaluation Pending
06 Sep 2024Reviewer(s) Assigned