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Fruit consumers and seed dispersers of the rare shrub Corema album, Empetraceae in coastal sand dunes

2005; Volume: 60; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.3406/revec.2005.1249

0249-7395

María Calviño‐Cancela,

Botanical Research and Applications

The frugivore assemblage of the rare shrub Corema album (Empetraceae), with gulls, rabbits, carnivorous mammals, lizards and passerines, is extraordinary for its diversity and because some of the species are very unusual as seed dispersers. Blackbirds and gulls have an important quantitative role in the Cies Islands. Gulls are important dispersers in Trece Bay as well, but seem to have no role in São Jacinto, where carnivorous mammals have a prevalent role. In the Cies Islands, the observations of the feeding visits to the plants revealed that the number of visits the dispersers made was the best predictor of their quantitative importance, followed by the number of fruits handled per visit, whereas the fruit handling efficiency had only a minor effect. Bird size had a significant effect on the number of fruits handled per visit but not on the proportion of fruits swallowed whole.