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Effects of insect infestation on Quercus aliena var. acuteserrata acorn dispersal in the Qinling Mountains, China

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Abstract

The nutritious acorns produced by oak trees (Quercus spp.) are attacked frequently by insects that feed on seed reserves. However, previous studies have partly considered the effects of insect infestations on animal seed dispersal and subsequent plant regeneration. In this study, we tested whether the effects of insect infestations on seed dispersal were frequency dependent (i.e., ratio of noninfested to infested acorns). We tracked the seed dispersal of plastic-tagged noninfested and insect-infested Q. aliena var. acuteserrata acorns with different frequencies in the Qinling Mountains in central China. Our results demonstrated that noninfested acorns were removed more rapidly, regardless of the infestation rates. Insect-infested acorns were also more likely to be eaten in situ, whereas noninfested acorns were more likely to be scatter-hoarded independent of infestation rates. Moreover, noninfested acorns were dispersed further and had higher survival rates than insect-infested acorns. Our findings suggest that the seed dispersal advantages of noninfested acorns compared with infested acorns was not frequency dependent, thereby indicating a consistently higher dispersal likelihood of noninfested acorns.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank two anonymous reviewers for valuable comments on the manuscript and Dr Duncan E. Jackson for improving the English language content of the manuscript. We also thank Qinling National Forest Ecosystem Research Station at Huoditang, Ningshaan County, Shaanxi Province for their valuable support of our field investigations. Qinli Hu, Dongyuan Zhang and Jizhong Chen provided important help in the field. Funds were provided by the Special Research Program for Public-Welfare Forestry of State Forestry Administration of China (No. 20100400206), National Natural Science Funds (No. 31070570), and CFERN & GENE Award Funds on Ecological Paper. These experiments comply with the current laws of our country.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Life Sciences, Henan Normal University, Xinxiang, 453007, China

    Fei Yu

  2. Northwest A & F University, Yangling District, Shaanxi, 712100, China

    Fei Yu, Xiaoxiao Shi, Dexiang Wang, Defang Fan & Tingdong Guo

  3. College of Life Sciences, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, 330022, China

    Xianfeng Yi

  4. Shangluo Vocational and Technical College, Shangluo, 726000, China

    Yuangen Lou

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  1. Fei Yu
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  2. Xiaoxiao Shi
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  3. Dexiang Wang
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  4. Xianfeng Yi
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Correspondence to Dexiang Wang.

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Yu, F., Shi, X., Wang, D. et al. Effects of insect infestation on Quercus aliena var. acuteserrata acorn dispersal in the Qinling Mountains, China. New Forests 46, 51–61 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11056-014-9446-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11056-014-9446-4

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