Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-vfjqv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-27T05:12:44.524Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Differences in dung beetle activity at western gorilla defecation sites in south-east Cameroon: implications for establishment of Uapaca spp. seedlings

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2015

Charles-Albert Petre ,
Marie-Hélène Zinque ,
Nikki Tagg ,
Roseline-Claire Beudels-Jamar ,
Barbara Haurez ,
Jean-François Josso ,
Philippe Moretto  and
Jean-Louis Doucet
Charles-Albert Petre*
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Tropical and Subtropical Forestry, Forest Resources Management, BIOSE Department, Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech, University of Liège, 2 Passage des Déportés, 5030 Gembloux, Belgium Conservation Biology Unit, Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, 29 Rue Vautier, 1000 Brussels, Belgium Projet Grands Singes Cameroon, Centre for Research and Conservation, Royal Zoological Society of Antwerp, 20–26 Koningin Astridplein, 2018 Antwerp, Belgium
Marie-Hélène Zinque
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Tropical and Subtropical Forestry, Forest Resources Management, BIOSE Department, Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech, University of Liège, 2 Passage des Déportés, 5030 Gembloux, Belgium
Nikki Tagg
Affiliation:
Projet Grands Singes Cameroon, Centre for Research and Conservation, Royal Zoological Society of Antwerp, 20–26 Koningin Astridplein, 2018 Antwerp, Belgium
Roseline-Claire Beudels-Jamar
Affiliation:
Conservation Biology Unit, Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, 29 Rue Vautier, 1000 Brussels, Belgium
Barbara Haurez
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Tropical and Subtropical Forestry, Forest Resources Management, BIOSE Department, Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech, University of Liège, 2 Passage des Déportés, 5030 Gembloux, Belgium École Régionale Post-Universitaire d’Aménagement et de Gestion Intégrés des Forêts et Territoires Tropicaux (ERAIFT), B.P. 15373 Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo
Jean-François Josso
Affiliation:
Association Catharsius, Paris, France
Philippe Moretto
Affiliation:
Association Catharsius, Paris, France
Jean-Louis Doucet
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Tropical and Subtropical Forestry, Forest Resources Management, BIOSE Department, Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech, University of Liège, 2 Passage des Déportés, 5030 Gembloux, Belgium École Régionale Post-Universitaire d’Aménagement et de Gestion Intégrés des Forêts et Territoires Tropicaux (ERAIFT), B.P. 15373 Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo
*
2Corresponding author. Email: capetre@doct.ulg.ac.be
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

For endozoochorous seed dispersal systems, the extant dung beetle assemblage at seed deposition sites may influence site suitability as burial activity may change the probability that seeds germinate and seedlings establish. This study tested if the different conditions of the two main seed-deposition habitats of a western lowland gorilla population of south-east Cameroon (sleeping sites and old secondary forest) influenced dung beetle assemblages and consequently the seed relocation patterns. In March 2012, in both habitats, burial patterns (proportion and depth) were described in eight stations based on two 300-g experimental faeces with known number of Uapaca spp. seeds (N = 75) left for 48 h, and beetle assemblages were described based on one 48h-dung-baited pitfall trapping session in five of these stations. To assess the impact of burial pattern on seedling emergence, Uapaca seedling emergence trials were performed in a nursery (75 seeds per depth treatment). Assemblage at sleeping sites had a higher species richness (non-significant) and was significantly more abundant than in old secondary forests. Conversely, significantly more seeds were buried in old secondary forests than sleeping sites and at significantly greater depths (mean: 14.9 cm vs. 8.7 cm). As trials suggested that burial depth ≥7 cm prevented Uapaca seedling emergence, dung beetles are assumed to induce seed loss more strongly in old secondary forests than sleeping sites (20.5% vs. 6.7% of initial seed crop). The demonstration that dung beetles may exert a negative influence on seed fate overall, and that the degree to which this occurs may vary depending on habitat, highlights the complexity in determining the suitability of deposition sites for recruitment.

Keywords

deposition site suitabilityforest dynamicsGorilla gorilla gorillasecondary dispersalseed dispersal effectivenesssleeping sitesUapaca spp.
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Tropical Ecology , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , March 2015 , pp. 165 - 174
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

LITERATURE CITED

ANDRESEN, E. 1999. Seed dispersal by monkeys and the fate of dispersed seeds in a Peruvian rain forest. Biotropica 31:145–158.Google Scholar
ANDRESEN, E. 2001. Effects of dung presence, dung amount and secondary dispersal by dung beetles on the fate of Micropholis guyanensis (Sapotaceae) seeds in Central Amazonia. Journal of Tropical Ecology 17:61–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ANDRESEN, E. 2002. Dung beetles in a Central Amazonian rainforest and their ecological role as secondary seed dispersers. Ecological Entomology 27:257–270.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ANDRESEN, E. 2003. Effect of forest fragmentation on dung beetle communities and functional consequences for plant regeneration. Ecography 26:87–97.Google Scholar
ANDRESEN, E. & LEVEY, D. J. 2004. Effects of dung and seed size on secondary dispersal, seed predation, and seedling establishment of rain forest trees. Oecologia 139:45–54.Google Scholar
BEAUNE, D., BOLLACHE, L., BRETAGNOLLE, F. & FRUTH, B. 2012. Dung beetles are critical in preventing post-dispersal seed removal by rodents in Congo rain forest. Journal of Tropical Ecology 28:507–510.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BICKNELL, J. E., PHELPS, S. P., DAVIES, R. G., MANN, D. J., STRUEBIG, M. J. & DAVIES, Z. G. 2014. Dung beetles as indicators for rapid impact assessments: evaluating best practice forestry in the neotropics. Ecological Indicators 43:154–161.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
CHAMBERS, J. C. & MACMAHON, J. A. 1994. A day in the life of a seed: movements and fates of seeds and their implications for natural and managed systems. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 25:263–292.Google Scholar
CHAO, A. 1984. Nonparametric estimation of the number of classes in a population. Scandinavian Journal of Statistics 11:265–270.Google Scholar
CHAO, A. 1987. Estimating the population size for capture–recapture data with unequal catchability. Biometrics 43:783–791.Google Scholar
CULOT, L., HUYNEN, M.-C., GERARD, P. & HEYMANN, E. W. 2009. Short-term post-dispersal fate of seeds defecated by two small primate species (Saguinus mystax and Saguinus fuscicollis) in the Amazonian forest of Peru. Journal of Tropical Ecology 25:229–238.Google Scholar
CULOT, L., MANN, D. J., MUÑOZ LAZO, F. J. J., HUYNEN, M.-C. & HEYMANN, E. W. 2011. Tamarins and dung beetles: an efficient diplochorous dispersal system in the Peruvian Amazonia. Biotropica 43:84–92.Google Scholar
DAÏNOU, K., BAUDUIN, A., BOURLAND, N., GILLET, J.-F., FETEKE, F. & DOUCET, J.-L. 2011. Soil seed bank characteristics in Cameroonian rainforests and implications for post-logging forest recovery. Ecological Engineering 37:1499–1506.Google Scholar
ESTRADA, A. & COATES-ESTRADA, R. 1991. Howler monkeys (Alouatta palliata), dung beetles (Scarabaeidae) and seed dispersal: ecological interactions in the tropical rain forest of Los Tuxtlas, Mexico. Journal of Tropical Ecology 7:459–474.Google Scholar
FEER, F. 1999. Effects of dung beetles (Scarabaeidae) on seeds dispersed by howler monkeys (Alouatta seniculus) in the French Guianan rain forest. Journal of Tropical Ecology 15:129–142.Google Scholar
HANSKI, I. 1989. Dung beetles. Pp. 489–511 in Lieth, H. & Werger, M. J. A. (eds.). Tropical rain forest ecosystems. Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., Amsterdam.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
HAWTHORNE, W. 1995. Ecological profiles of Ghanaian forest trees. Tropical Forestry Papers 29. Oxford Forestry Institute, Oxford.Google Scholar
HOSAKA, T., NIINO, M., MASAHIRO, K., OCHI, T., YAMADA, T., FLETCHER, C. & OKUDA, T. 2014. Effects of logging road networks on the ecological functions of dung beetles in peninsular Malaysia. Forest Ecology and Management 326:18–24.Google Scholar
IWATA, Y. & ANDO, C. 2007. Bed and bed-site reuse by western lowland gorillas (Gorilla g. gorilla) in Moukalaba-Doudou National Park, Gabon. Primates 48:77–80.Google Scholar
LARSEN, T. H. & FORSYTH, A. 2005. Trap spacing and transect design for dung beetle biodiversity studies. Biotropica 37:322–325.Google Scholar
LETOUZEY, R. 1968. Etude phytogéographique du Cameroun. Editions Paul Lechevalier, Paris. 508 pp.Google Scholar
NICHOLS, E., SPECTOR, S., LOUZADA, J., LARSEN, T., AMEZQUITA, S. & FAVILA, M. E. 2008. Ecological functions and ecosystem services provided by Scarabaeinae dung beetles. Biological Conservation 141:1461–1474.Google Scholar
PETRE, C.-A., TAGG, N., HAUREZ, B., BEUDELS-JAMAR, R., HUYNEN, M.-C. & DOUCET, J.-L. 2013. Role of the western lowland gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) in seed dispersal in tropical forests and implications of its decline. Biotechnology, Agronomy, Society and Environment 17:517–526.Google Scholar
SANTOS-HEREDIA, C. & ANDRESEN, E. 2014. Upward movement of buried seeds: another ecological role of dung beetles promoting seedling establishment. Journal of Tropical Ecology 30:409–417.Google Scholar
SANTOS-HEREDIA, C., ANDRESEN, E. & ZÁRATE, D. A. 2010. Secondary seed dispersal by dung beetles in a Colombian rain forest: effects of dung type and defecation pattern on seed fate. Journal of Tropical Ecology 26:355–364.Google Scholar
SCHOLTZ, C. H., DAVIS, A. L. V. & KRYGER, U. 2009. Evolutionary biology and conservation of dung beetles. Pensoft Publishers, Sofia. 567 pp.Google Scholar
SCHUPP, E. W., JORDANO, P. & GÓMEZ, J. M. 2010. Seed dispersal effectiveness revisited: a conceptual review. New Phytologist 188:333–353.Google Scholar
SHEPHERD, V. E. & CHAPMAN, C. A. 1998. Dung beetles as secondary seed dispersers: impact on seed predation and germination. Journal of Tropical Ecology 14:199–215.Google Scholar
SLADE, E. M., MANN, D. J., VILLANUEVA, J. F. & LEWIS, O. T. 2007. Experimental evidence for the effects of dung beetle functional group richness and composition on ecosystem function in a tropical forest. Journal of Animal Ecology 76:1094–1104.Google Scholar
TAGG, N. & WILLIE, J. 2013. The influence of transect use by local people and reuse of transects for repeated surveys on nesting in western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) and central chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes troglodytes) in southeast Cameroon. International Journal of Primatology 34:554–570.Google Scholar
TODD, A. F., KUEHL, H. S., CIPOLLETTA, C. & WALSH, P. D. 2008. Using dung to estimate gorilla density: modeling dung production rate. International Journal of Primatology 29:549–563.Google Scholar
TUTIN, C. E. G., PARNELL, R. J., WHITE, L. J. T. & FERNANDEZ, M. 1995 . Nest building by lowland gorillas in the Lope Reserve, Gabon: environmental influences and implications for censusing. International Journal of Primatology 16:53–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
VANDER WALL, S. B. & LONGLAND, W. 2004. Diplochory: are two seed dispersers better than one? Trends in Ecology and Evolution 19:155–161.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
VANDER WALL, S. B., KUHN, K. M. & BECK, M. J. 2005. Seed removal, seed predation, and secondary dispersal. Ecology 86:801–806.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
VULINEC, K. & LAMBERT, J. E. 2009. Neutral and niche perspectives and the role of primates as seed dispersers: a case study from Rio Paratari, Brazil. Pp. 321–340 in Garber, P. A., Estrada, A., Bicca-Marques, J. C., Heymann, E. W. & Strier, K. B. (eds.). South American Primates. Springer, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
WILLIE, J., PETRE, C.-A., TAGG, N. & LENS, L. 2012. Density of herbaceous plants and distribution of western gorillas in different habitat types in south-east Cameroon. African Journal of Ecology 51:111–121.Google Scholar
WILLIE, J., TAGG, N., PETRE, C.-A., PEREBOOM, Z. & LENS, L. 2014. Plant selection for nest building by western lowland gorillas in Cameroon. Primates 55:41–49.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed