Fire and edge disturbances in the Amazon rainforest: impacts on animal-fruit and seed interactions.
Oliveira JBBS, Dáttilo W, Oliveira HFM, Brando PM, de Araújo WS
Climate Adaptation
Animals and insects that eat fruit and scatter seeds are the invisible workforce behind every forest's ability to heal itself — and without them, burned or fragmented forests near your local green spaces may never fully come back.
Researchers set up fake fruits and real crop seeds in Amazon forests that had been burned repeatedly and near forest edges to see which animals were still doing their job of spreading seeds. They found that animals were still eating fruits at normal rates even in disturbed areas, but the crucial next step — animals actually moving seeds around to new places — had dropped significantly in burned forests. Even 12 years after the fires, the forest's seed-spreading network hadn't fully bounced back.
Key Findings
Terrestrial animal-fruit interactions were twice as high at unburned forest edges compared to burned or undisturbed interior forests.
Seed dispersal interactions declined significantly in both the interior and edges of burned forests, even 12 years after repeated experimental fires.
Invertebrates dominated ground-level fruit and seed interactions, while vertebrates were more active in the understory, revealing complementary and non-interchangeable ecological roles.
chevron_right Technical Summary
A decade-plus after repeated fires in the Amazon, forests still haven't fully recovered the animal interactions that help seeds spread and regenerate. Fire and forest-edge effects disrupt seed dispersal more severely than fruit consumption, suggesting recovery takes longer than 12 years.
Abstract Preview
Burned forests-particularly at their edges-are expected to lose capacity for regeneration, and subsequent disturbances may further limit it. Animal-plant interactions are critical to the resilience...
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