1. Dispersal limitation severely impairs the trajectory of restoration, mainly due to the lack of seed vectors bringing seeds from nearby habitats; a role played by many frugivorous vertebrates that can be absent or reduced in restored or degraded sites. 2. Here we propose a new technique named Induced Seed Dispersal, that amplifies the role that many generalist frugivores have in seed dispersal. It consists in the offering of seeds embedded in the pulp of commercial fruits or whole native fleshy fruits in feeders to generalist frugivores, which ingest the seeds and defecate them elsewhere. We set feeders in a restored site and monitored the visiting pattern of these frugivores with cameras-traps. We also set seed traps to retrieve seeds dispersed by frugivores and offered around 1,500 seeds of Cecropia hololeuca (Urticaceae) per week for 1 year. 3. We recorded at least 24 generalist frugivore species of terrestrial mammals, bats and birds, which ingested/removed the seeds/fruits from the feeders. Seeds of C. hololeuca dispersed by marmosets were retrieved in the seed traps and germinated. We estimated a potential seed rain of more than 600 C. hololeuca seeds ha −1 mo −1. 4. Synthesis and applications. Our study demonstrates that this new technique can make use of generalist frugivores to assist restoration or regeneration into sites where seed dispersal is compromised by the lack of dispersers or limited seed arrival. Inducing seed dispersal by generalist frugivores is a low-cost and easymanaged technique that can be applied year-round in restoration and forest enrichments at all scales.
Mammalian carnivores are considered a key group in maintaining ecological health and can indicate potential ecological integrity in landscapes where they occur. Carnivores also hold high conservation value and their habitat requirements can guide management and conservation plans. The order Carnivora has 84 species from 8 families in the Neotropical region: Canidae; Felidae; Mephitidae; Mustelidae; Otariidae; Phocidae; Procyonidae; and Ursidae. Herein, we include published and unpublished data on native terrestrial Neotropical carnivores (Canidae; Felidae; Mephitidae; Mustelidae; Procyonidae; and Ursidae). NEOTROPICAL CARNIVORES is a publicly available data set that includes 99,605 data entries from 35,511 unique georeferenced coordinates. Detection/non‐detection and quantitative data were obtained from 1818 to 2018 by researchers, governmental agencies, non‐governmental organizations, and private consultants. Data were collected using several methods including camera trapping, museum collections, roadkill, line transect, and opportunistic records. Literature (peer‐reviewed and grey literature) from Portuguese, Spanish and English were incorporated in this compilation. Most of the data set consists of detection data entries (n = 79,343; 79.7%) but also includes non‐detection data (n = 20,262; 20.3%). Of those, 43.3% also include count data (n = 43,151). The information available in NEOTROPICAL CARNIVORES will contribute to macroecological, ecological, and conservation questions in multiple spatio‐temporal perspectives. As carnivores play key roles in trophic interactions, a better understanding of their distribution and habitat requirements are essential to establish conservation management plans and safeguard the future ecological health of Neotropical ecosystems. Our data paper, combined with other large‐scale data sets, has great potential to clarify species distribution and related ecological processes within the Neotropics. There are no copyright restrictions and no restriction for using data from this data paper, as long as the data paper is cited as the source of the information used. We also request that users inform us of how they intend to use the data.
Despite the great importance of the siphons for infaunal bivalves, only a few studies have examined their tissues using histology techniques or scanning electron microscopy. In the present study, the siphons of Tellina lineata Turton, 1819 and Macoma biota Arruda & Domaneschi, 2005 were investigated. The siphon walls are composed by a series of muscle sheets of longitudinal ("L"), circular ("C") and radial ("R") fibers, with a clear pattern common to both species: there is a main median longitudinal layer (Lm), and two peripheral circular layers, one inner (Ci) and one outer (Co), near the epithelia. A median circular layer (Cm) separates an internal (Lmi) from an outer (Lmo) median longitudinal layer. Further, the Co is split by a thin outer longitudinal layer (Lo), forming Coi and Coo layers, the former being obliquely oriented. Thin radial fibers (R) delimit clear packages of Lmi and Lmo fibers. In each siphon, there are six longitudinal nerve cords, running within the Lmi layer, adjacent to the Cm. The inhalant and exhalant siphons of M. biota are very similar in structure, but the Lmo of the exhalant siphon is almost twice as thick as its Lmi, while in the inhalant siphon these layers have similar thicknesses; the Coi is very thick, especially in the exhalant siphon. The inhalant siphon of T. lineata is very similar to that of M. biota, differing only with respect to the thickness of the Coi, which in the former species is not as well developed as in the latter. The Lmo of the exhalant siphon of T. lineata is by far the most developed layer, with the Lmi represented only by uniseriate small cells; in the vicinities of the nerve cords, the Cm is split in two layers. The epithelia of both siphons of M. biota and T. lineata bear ciliated receptors, which were difficult to observe as they were frequently covered with mucus. It was possible to observe that cilia are present in both species, differing in length and in the number per receptor between the inhalant and exhalant siphons, and between the species. Detailed comparisons among the siphons of M. biota and T. lineata and other bivalve species are very difficult, because of at least two reasons. First, each investigator has used different methods to prepare and observe the siphons through histological sections; and second, different nomenclatural schemes are used to describe the musculature of the siphons, causing confusion when the same layers are compared among different species. In order to unify the nomenclature of tissue layers of the bivalve siphons, we now propose a scheme to name these layers based on topological homology
As corujas-buraqueiras (Athene cunicularia) possuem hábitos alimentares carnívoros, mas em observações recentes de um casal de corujas da Praça da Paz (UNICAMP), frutos de palmeira (Elaeis oleifera (Kunth) Cortés) foram encontrados ao redor e dentro de seus buracos. Assim, o trabalho teve como objetivo identificar as possíveis interações destas com os frutos, por meio da retirada experimental dos cocos do local e da realização de observações do casal. Não registramos interações diretas de A. cunicularia com E. oleifera , mas, houve reposição dos frutos no local. Comparamos o conteúdo das egagrópilas do casal em questão com as de outras corujas e encontramos que as egagrópilas da corujas da Praça da Paz foram as únicas que apresentaram fibras de E. oleifera e pelos e ossos de vertebrados estavam ausentes, os quais são importantes no processo de formação de egagrópilas. É possível que as fibras sejam usadas por essas corujas para formação das egagrópilas, ao invés de pelos e ossos. São necessários mais estudos e aumento da amostragem de egagrópilas para confirmar este comportamento inédito.
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