10.5061/DRYAD.6BN34
Granados, Alys
University of British Columbia
Bernard, Henry
Universiti of Malaysia Sabah
Brodie, Jedediah F.
University of British Columbia
Data from: The combined impacts of experimental defaunation and logging on
seedling traits and diversity
Dryad
dataset
2018
Borneo
defauantion
vertebrate
herbivore
2018-02-08T15:36:38Z
2018-02-08T15:36:38Z
en
https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2017.2882
137750 bytes
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CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Animals can have both positive (e.g. via seed dispersal) and negative
(e.g. via herbivory) impacts on plants. The net effects of these
interactions remain difficult to predict and may be affected by
overhunting and habitat disturbance, two widespread threats to tropical
forests. Recent studies have documented their separate effects on plant
recruitment but our understanding of how defaunation and logging interact
to influence tropical tree communities is limited. From 2013-2016, we
followed the fate of marked tree seedlings (n = 1489) from 81 genera in
and outside experimental plots. Our plots differentially excluded small,
medium, and large-bodied mammal herbivores in logged and unlogged forest
in Malaysian Borneo. We assessed the effects of experimental defaunation
and logging on taxonomic diversity and plant trait (wood density, specific
leaf area, fruit size) composition of seedling communities. Although
seedling mortality was highest in the presence of all mammal herbivores
(44%), defaunation alone did not alter taxonomic diversity nor plant trait
composition. However, herbivores (across all body sizes) significantly
reduced mean fruit size across the seedling community over time (95% CI:
-0.09 to -0.01), particularly in logged forest (95% CI: -0.12 to -0.003).
Our findings suggest that impacts of mammal herbivores on plant
communities may be greater in forests with a history of disturbance and
could subsequently affect plant functional traits and ecological processes
associated with forest regeneration.
CWM plant trait dataCWM plant traits- Granados et al .xlsxSeedling
mortality from exclosure treatmentsoverall seedling mortality- Granados et
al.xlsx
Southeast Asia