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Tytuł:
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Seed-dispersal distributions by trumpeter hornbills in fragmented landscapes.
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Autorzy:
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Lenz, Johanna
Fiedler, Wolfgang
Caprano, Tanja
Friedrichs, Wolfgang
Gaese, Bernhard H.
Wikelski, Martin
Böhning-Gaese, Katrin
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Temat:
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HORNBILLS
SEED dispersal
LANDSCAPES
HABITATS
GLOBAL Positioning System
CLIMATE change
LAND use
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Źródło:
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Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences; 8/ 7/2011, Vol. 278 Issue 1716, p2257-2264, 8p
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Frugivorous birds provide important ecosystem services by transporting seeds of fleshy fruited plants. It has been assumed that seed-dispersal kernels generated by these animals are generally leptokurtic, resulting in little dispersal among habitat fragments. However, little is known about the seed-dispersal distribution generated by large frugivorous birds in fragmented landscapes. We investigated movement and seed-dispersal patterns of trumpeter hornbills (Bycanistes bucinator) in a fragmented landscape in South Africa. Novel GPS loggers provide high-quality location data without bias against recording long-distance movements. We found a very weakly bimodal seed-dispersal distribution with potential dispersal distances up to 14.5 km. Within forest, the seed-dispersal distribution was unimodal with an expected dispersal distance of 86 m. In the fragmented agricultural landscape, the distribution was strongly bimodal with peaks at 18 and 512 m. Our results demonstrate that seed-dispersal distributions differed when birds moved in different habitat types. Seed-dispersal distances in fragmented landscapes show that transport among habitat patches is more frequent than previously assumed, allowing plants to disperse among habitat patches and to track the changing climatic conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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