FSD 2010 - Garcia

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

Daniel García

Depto. Biología de Organismos y Sistemas, University of Oviedo, Oviedo 33071, Spain

e-mail: danielgarcia[at]uniovi.es

(Photo : The hawthorn Crataegus monogyna is a fleshy-fruited tree used as a focal species in our studies. © Daniel Martinez)

Activities

My research focuses on the ecological and evolutionary consequences of plant-animal interactions such as frugivory, seed dispersal and seed predation. I study these ecological relationships taking into account, first, that they are processes with effects across different levels of biological organization, from population to ecosystems, and second, that these effects are strongly conditioned by the intrinsic spatial heterogeneity of these ecological networks. I seek to understand the spatial functioning of frugivory and seed dispersal to develop conservation tools for the interacting species as well as management guidelines for the derived ecosystem services. I carry out my studies in temperate ecosystems, usually highly impacted by human traditional land uses. (Photo : Hawthorn berries with typical beak marks of thrushes (Turdus spp.) in the fruit surface. © D. Martinez)

Abstract

The landscape ecology of frugivory and seed dispersal: concepts and applications.

Understanding how the spatial topology of organisms and the environment determines the functioning of ecosystems is a major challenge today. Landscape ecology aims to evaluate how the spatial patterns of the landscape affect the distribution of ecological objects and the functioning of ecological processes. In addressing this goal we may predict that both the spatial configuration and the spatial scale matter. Here, I seek to answer how the functioning of plant-frugivore interactions, and the concomitant seed dispersal, depend both on the spatial configuration of the environment and on the spatial scale. This requires to consider that, firstly, from the animal’s perspective, plants are resources whose spatial heterogeneity is hierarchically nested along a gradient of spatial scales. Secondly, from the plant’s perspective, interactions are sequential demographic sieves through the regeneration cycle, whose spatial structure depends on the scale at which animals perceive the environment. Animals respond to the spatial heterogeneity in plant populations by matching their activity to the abundance of plant resources. Such a spatial tracking may ultimately determine the spatial scale of seed dispersal and hence of plant populations. By understanding the spatial performance of frugivory and seed dispersal we may explain how animals shape plant populations and metapopulations, as well as competition-facilitation trade-offs within plant communities. We may also assess how these ecological processes respond to human-induced landscape alterations. (Photo : The Peña Mayor range (Asturias, N Spain), one of our main study sites. © D. Garcia)

References (pdf)

García D, Zamora R & Amico GC (2010) Birds as suppliers of seed dispersal in temperate ecosystems: conservation guidelines from real-world landscapes. Conservation Biology 000: 000-000.

García D, Rodríguez-Cabal M & Amico GC (2009) Seed dispersal by a frugivorous marsupial shapes the spatial scale of a mistletoe population. Journal of Ecology 97: 217-229.

García D & Chacoff NP (2007) Scale-dependent effects of habitat fragmentation on hawthorn pollination, frugivory and seed predation. Conservation Biology 21: 400-411.

García D & Ortiz-Pulido R (2004) Patterns of resource tracking by avian frugivores at multiple spatial scales – two case studies on discordance among scales. Ecography 27: 187-196.