FSD 2010
Breaking News
07/28/2008 - Highlight on Frugivores : Fruit Bats and Collpas
In the Peruvian Amazon, large numbers of frugivorous bats regularly visit collpas (also called clay licks or mineral licks). Bats drink water accumulated in depressions created by geophagous mammals. Adriana Bravo et al. from Louisiana State University Department of Biological Sciences, Baton Rouge, LA, United States, presented these results at the Annual ATBC meeting in Suriname. Illustration : Vampyriscus bidens, a frugivorous bat species that visits collpas. Photo by Adriana Bravo. Read Mongabay.com. See also the bat-plant interaction Symposium.
07/05/2008 - Frugivores of the Month
Each month, we will put some light on frugivores and their role as seed dispersers. In July 2007, we focus on Spider monkeys, an ideal biotic link between ATBC2008 meeting in Suriname and FSD2010 symposium-Workshop in Montpellier. Please, don't hesitate to nominate your favorite frugivores and seed dispersers. Submit a short text with some key references. We will open a special web page for them. Contact : fsd2010@yahoo.fr.
07/02/2008 - July, 2, 2008 - Official launching day for www.fsd2010.org
After organizing the Annual Meeting of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC) in Suriname, South America (atbc2008.org) Pierre-Michel Forget (MNHN, current ATBC President) and François Feer (CNRS, ATBC2008 Association President) are organizing the 5th International Symposium-Workshop on Frugivores and Seed Dispersal (1985-2010). A fsd2010 logo will be designed and new pictures will come to illustrate this web site dedicated to many animals, vertebrates and invertebrates, which consume and disperse seeds in numerous habitats around the planet. Our aim is to bring scientists from temperate and tropical regions into the Mediterranean Region of Europe. Illustration on left by François Feer : Black Spider Monkey or Ateles paniscus, one of the most important frugivores and seed dispersers in neotropical rainforests where it is highly endangered by hunting, fragmentation and goldmining. Read the interview of Alejandro Estrada, co-organizer of the first symposium on Frugivores and Seed Dispersal in 1985.