1. Mammals play an important role in seed germination through the ingestion of fruits and seeds. Since seed germination is a basic step in seedling recruitment, understanding how mammals affect germination improves our understanding of the effect of loss of mammal populations on the dynamics of plant communities. 2. We used meta-analytical methods to describe global patterns in the effect of seed ingestion by mammals on seed germination success and rate. We collected data from 154 studies that included 115 mammal species and 448 plant species. 3. Our results showed a positive cumulative effect of mammals on seed germination. However, this effect differed between mammalian orders; thus, some groups such as elephants, primates, and new world marsupials emerged as important enhancers of seed germination. Also, the effect varied depending on the plant family and the bioregion. Increased seed germination after ingestion was positively related to fast germination. 4. This meta-analysis, the first to synthesise and compare most of the information presently available on how mammals affect seed germination after ingestion, shows a global positive effect of mammals as enhancers of seed germination. However, behind that positive effect lies a diversity of neutral, negative, and positive effects of different magnitudes, which may have multifactorial explanations. We hope that the patterns presented here open up new questions and help guide future research efforts.

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A pesar de que la transformación de los paisajes naturales y la aparición de paisajes agrícolas tienen efectos negativos sobre las especies, algunos paisajes rurales heterogéneos albergan comunidades ecológicas muy diversas. Presentamos una descripción de los ensamblajes locales de aves en el paisaje rural subandino de Risaralda, en Colombia, y exploramos la estructura espacial de la avifauna asociada a la distancia geográfica entre localidades y la riqueza de tipos de vegetación. Durante 5 años (2013-2017) registramos 309 especies, 50 familias y 22 órdenes en 15 localidades ubicadas entre 1600 y 2200 m s. n. m. Encontramos que el ensamblaje de aves presenta un recambio espacial en la composición de especies asociado a la distancia geográfica entre localidades y a la diversidad de tipos de vegetación en cada localidad, que se evidencia en una alta complementariedad entre los ensamblajes de las localidades estudiadas. Los diferentes tipos de vegetación del paisaje hacen un aporte importante a la diversidad beta e incrementan la riqueza regional de aves. Consideramos importante la inclusión de los paisajes rurales dentro de las iniciativas de conservación a escala regional y nacional. Palabras clave. Conservación. Diversidad alfa. Diversidad beta. Listado de especies. Mosaico del paisaje. Paisaje agrícola.

AbstractSpecies do not function as isolated entities, rather they are organized in complex networks of interactions. These networks develop the ecological processes that provide ecosystem services for human societies. Understanding the causes and consequences of changes in ecological networks due to landscape modification would allow us to understand the consequences of ecological processes. However, there is still theoretical controversy and few empirical data on the effects of network characteristics on the loss of natural environments. We investigate how bat–fruit networks respond to three landscapes representing the gradient of modification from pre-montane forest to a heterogeneous agricultural landscape in the Colombian Andes (continuous forests, forest fragments, and crops). We found that forest contained smaller bat–fruit networks than forest fragments and crops. Modified landscapes had similar ecological network structures to forest (nestedness and modularity), but crops contained less specialized networks compared to forests and fragments and the species role in these habitats change. The networks in the rural coffee landscape maintain their structure in the different transformation scenarios, indicating that seed dispersal services are maintained even in the most transformed scenarios. This could be related to the high heterogeneity present in this rural landscape. Although the number of species does not decrease due to transformations, species change their roles in the most transformed habitats. This result sheds light on the way that biodiversity responds to anthropogenic transformations, showing higher stability than theoretically predicted.

AbstractSeed germination is the first step in seedling recruitment. Understanding what factors determine germination success allows some predictions of the effect of climate change or defaunation on the dynamics of plant communities. Mammals play an important role on seed germination through the ingestion of fruit and seeds. However, the populations of many mammal species have been reduced throughout the world, affecting in many ways the dynamics of plant communities. To understand how the loss of mammal populations might impact the dynamics of plant communities first requires us to collect and synthetize all the available evidence on the effects of mammals on seedling recruitment. Here, we used meta-analytical methods to describe the global patterns of the ingestion of seeds by mammals and their effect on seed germination. Our results showed a positive cumulative effect of mammals on seed germination. However, this effect was not the same for all the mammal orders; it varied depending on the plant family and the bioregion. Additionally, increased seed germination was related to rapid germination. These data highlight the important role that some mammals such as Primates and Elephants have on seed germination, and this poses many questions about the mechanisms behind seed germination patterns that will help to guide future research efforts.