FSD 2010 - Tapirs

5th International Symposium-Workshop on Frugivores and Seed Dispersal (1985-2010)

Tapirs

Presentation

The family Tapiridae contains tapirs. They are placed in one genus, Tapirus, with four species : Baird's tapir - Lowland tapir - Mountain tapir - Malayan tapir. Tapirs are shy, reclusive rainforest animals that live in nearly any wooded or grassy habitat with a permanent supply of water. They have also been found in dry deciduous forests and mountain forests.

Baird's Tapir, Tapirus bairdii — native to Mexico, Central America and north western Colombia in South America. Its coat is dark red-brown to black as an adult and it has white ear fringes. (Photo © Charles Foerster, more Photos at IUCN).
Lowland Tapir, Tapirus terrestris — native to South America from Colombia to Paraguay and Brazil. The Lowland tapir's coat is dark on the animal's back and lighter on the underside. It prefers living where it's warm, rainy, and humid. Crocodilians as well as jaguars and pumas are natural predators for this tapir species. (Photos).
Malayan Tapir, Tapirus indicus — the only tapir from Asia, found in Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, and Indonesia. It has a distinctive coat pattern: black in the front and white in the back. This acts as camouflage by breaking up the tapir's body outline in the shade of the forest. Tigers are the Malayan tapir's main natural predators. (Photos).
Mountain Tapir, Tapirus pinchaque — lives in the Andean Mountains of northern South America in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. It is the smallest of the four tapir species and has a thick coat and undercoat to keep the animal warm in its cold mountain home. (Photo by Diego Lizcano, Los Nevados National Park, Colombia. More Photos).

Baird

Lowland

Malayan

Mountain

Diet and seed dispersal

Tapirs are exclusively herbivorous, sheltering in thickets by day and emerging at night to feed in bordering areas of grasses or shrubs. Tapirs forage from the forest floor to 1.5 meters above ground. Leaves from a variety of plant species provide the bulk of their diet, but they also eat fruits, twigs, flowers, sedges, and grasses. Fruits from several plant species seem to be preferred when they are in season, but the total amount of fruit eaten varies by habitat and biome. Dietary composition of plant species also varies by season, with some species eaten during certain times of the year but avoided at others.

The tapir's role in dispersing seeds was demonstrated by a study in Ecuador, which showed that 42% of the species of vascular plants eaten by the mountain tapir germinated in its feces (Downer 1996).

(Photo : unidentified seedlings growing from Lowland Tapir's dung at Bronwsberg Natural Park, Suriname. © Pierre-Michel Forget)

Threats

Tapirs have been extensively hunted for food and sport in some areas, although some Indian tribes refuse to kill tapirs for religious reasons. They have been known to damage corn crops and other grains in Central America, although they are not in general considered a pest species. Populations of all species have declined in recent years because of clearing of forests by humans for agricultural reasons. According to the IUCN Red list of Threatened Species, Tapirs are classified as either VULNERABLE (Lowland) or ENDANGERED (Baird, Malayan and Mountain). (Photo © Kae Kawanishi, Taman Negara National Park in Peninsular Malaysia, IUCN)

Experts of Tapirs

IUCN/SSC Tapir Specialist group (TSG)

Patricia Medici - TSG Chair

Benoit de Thoisy – Bush meat crisis in Guyane - Association Kwata

Cécile Hansen – ONCFQS publications about Hunting in French Guiana

José M. V. Fragoso - Stanford University, Biology. People in Nature

Franz Kaston Florez - Nativa.org

Sources and websites

Wikipedia - Tapir (En)

Ballenger, L. and P. Myers. 2001. "Tapiridae" (On-line), Animal Diversity Web . Accessed March 21, 2010.

San Diego Zoo’s Tapir Page (En)

World Tapir's day (En)

IUCN/SSC Tapir specialist Group (TSG) (En) FaceBook group

Kwata Association (Fr)

Lowland Tapir Conservation Initiative

Tapir Preservation Fund

Nativa NGO (Colombian Terrestrial Tapir)

(Photo : Tapirus terrestris by © Guillaume Feuillet / Kwata)

Some of the presentations at FSD2010 about Tapirs

José Manuel V. Fragoso, L. Flamarion Oliviera, Kirsten Silvius, Jane Read - The abundance and diversity of vertebrate frugivores at lanscape levels in Amazonia.

Carlos Peres, Thaise Emilio, Juliana Schietti, Sylvain Desmoulière - Pervasive consequences of overhunting in Amazonian forests: a basin-wide meta-analysis of kill profiles and implications to ecosystem structure.

Juanita Choo - Dispersal and recruitment patterns of palms inferred through parentage analysis.

Georgina O'Farrill, Colin Chapman and Andrew Gonzalez - Megafaunal losses: when does a forest become empty?

Some Key References

Downer, C.C. 1996. The mountain tapir, endangered 'flagship' species of the high Andes. Oryx 30:45.

Foerster, C., C. Vaughan. 2002. Home range, habitat use, and activity of Baird's tapir in Costa Rica. Biotropica, 34: 423-437.

Galetti, M. Keuroghlian, A. Hanada L. & Morato, M. I. 2001. Frugivory and Seed Dispersal by the Lowland Tapir (Tapirus terrestris) in Southeast Brazil Biotropica 33: 723-726 JSTOR

Henry, O. Feer, F. & Sabatier, D. 2000. Diet of the Lowland Tapir (Tapirus terrestris L.) in French Guiana. Biotropica 32 :364-368 JSTOR

Keuroghlian, A. & Eaton, D. 2009. Removal of palm fruits and ecosystem engineering in palm stands by white-lipped peccaries (Tayassu pecari) and other frugivores in an isolated Atlantic Forest fragment. Conservation and Biodiversity and Conservation 18:1733–1750. pdf

Fragoso, J.M.V & Huffman, J.M. 2000. Seed-dispersal and seedling recruitment patterns by the last Neotropical megafauna element in Amazonia, the tapir. Journal of Tropical Ecology 16: 369-385. JSTOR

Fragoso, J.M.V., Silvius, K.M. & Correa, J.A. 2003. Long-distance seed dispersal by tapirs increases seed survival and aggregates tropical trees. Ecology 84: 1998-2006. Abstract.

Painter, R.L.E. 1998. Gardeners of the forest: Plant-animal interactions in a Neotropical forest ungulate community. Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK.

Salas, L.A. 1996. Habitat use by lowlands tapirs (Tapirus terrestris L.) in the Tabaro River valley, Southern Venezuela. Canadian Journal of Zoology 74: 1452-1458. Abstract.

Salas, L.A. & Fuller, T.K. 1996. Diet of the lowland tapir (Tapirus terrestris L.) in the Tabaro River valley, Southern Venezuela. Canadian Journal of Zoology 74: 1444-1451. Abstract.

Terwilliger, V. 1978. Natural history of Baird's Tapir on Barrow Colorado Island, Panama Canal Zone. Biotropica, 10: 211-220. JSTOR

Tobler, M.W. 2002. Habitat use and diet of Baird's Tapir (Tapirus bairdii) in a montane cloud forest of the Cordillera de Tallamanca, Costa Rica. Biotropica, 34: 468-474. Abstract.

Tobler, M.W. 2008. The ecology of the lowland tapir in Madre de Dios, Peru: Using new technologies to study large rainforest mammals. Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Texas, USA.

Tófoli, C.F. 2006. Frugivoria e dispersão de sementes por Tapirus terrestris (Linnaeus, 1758) na paisagem fragmentada do Pontal do Paranapanema, São Paulo. M.Sc. Dissertation. Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, Brazil. 89pp.

(Other references on Tapirs' diet and their role as seed dispersers, as well as on hunting pressure)

Acknowledgement

Thanks to Patricia Medici for corrections and suggestions on the text, and Kwata Association (Benoit de Thoisy/ Guillaume Feuillet) for use of photos of T. terrestris in French Guiana.