Abstract
Western chokecherry (Prunus virginiana var. demissa, Rosaceae) is dispersed by frugivorous birds and carnivores, but it has large seeds that are potentially attractive to rodents that could act as seed predators and dispersers. Here, we quantify the benefits of primary dispersal by birds and secondary dispersal by scatter-hoarding rodents. In the fall, avian frugivores (mostly American robins, Turdus migratorius, and cedar waxwings, Bombycilla cedrorum) consumed 87% of the fruit crop and dispersed 67% of the fruit crop away from parent plants. Rodents removed 89% of seeds that simulated bird-dispersed seed rain from transects in riparian zones and 58% from transects in upland habitats. Rodents scatter-hoarded 91.6% of the seeds they removed, burying most in small caches (two to eight seeds) 8–25 mm deep. About 39% of the seeds in spring caches produced seedlings. Inside rodent-proof exclosures, 52.1% of seeds buried to simulate rodent caches produced seedlings, 29.7% of which were still alive after 1 year. In contrast, only 3.8% of seeds placed on the soil surface, simulating dispersal by avian frugivores, produced seedlings. Seed dispersal by frugivorous birds likely contributes to colonization of unoccupied habitat through long-range dispersal and to escape from distance-dependent seed mortality near the parent plant. Despite seed losses, rodents offer short-range seed dispersal and bury seeds in more favorable sites for germination, improving seedling emergence and establishment. The combined mechanisms of seed dispersal significantly enhanced chokecherry seedling recruitment by providing more dispersal-related benefits than either frugivorous bird or scatter-hoarding rodents could provide alone.
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Acknowledgments
We thank Doug Levey, Stephen H. Jenkins, William S. Longland, David W. Zeh, and Thomas J. Nickles for their comments on an earlier draft of the manuscript. We thank Jenny Briggs, Julie Roth, Ted Thayer, Jennifer Armstrong, Jennifer Hollander, Kellie Kuhn, Jenny Francis, Jessica Hay, and Chris Farrar for assistance in the field. We thank G. C. J. Fernandez, I. Aban, and David Board for help with statistical analysis. Dr Chris Ross permitted us the use of his property for the chokecherry emergence study. We received financial support from the Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology (EECB) program at the University of Nevada, Reno and the Whittell Forest and Wildlife Area. Lucy Morris, Pauline Jasper, Lou Christiansen, and Cheri Briggs provided logistical support.
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Communicated by Colin Orians.
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Beck, M.J., Vander Wall, S.B. Diplochory in western chokecherry: you can’t judge a fruit by its mesocarp. Oecologia 165, 131–141 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-010-1759-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-010-1759-1