Two new species of Phalangopsis Serville, 1831 (Orthoptera: Grylloidea: Phalangopsidae) from Brazilian Amazon Forest

Mews, Carina M.; Sperber, Carlos Frankl

doi:10.1590/s0001-37652008000400006

Cited by 1 publication

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References 7 publications

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“…These results suggest that crickets may affect the local seed distribution of herb species that produce seeds too heavy to be carried by ants (Gómez et al 2005), changing their dispersal kernel. Body size of crickets may vary 16 mm among species and around 5 mm within the same species during their life cycle (Mews and Sperber 2008;Gorochov 2014), so their effects on dispersal distance may be more variable than we report here. Invertebrates such as ants and crickets act at local scales (mean radius !5 m), but their seed removal distances, even if apparently small, represent enough escape from under the parent canopy for herbs that are mostly ∼1 m high (except for I. arouma, which averages 2 m high).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 71%

Busy Nights: High Seed Dispersal by Crickets in a Neotropical Forest

Santana

Baccaro

Costa

2016

The American Naturalist

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Among invertebrates, ants are the most abundant and probably most important seed dispersers in both temperate and tropical environments. Crickets, also abundant in tropical forests, are omnivores and commonly attracted to fruits on the forest floor. However, their capability to remove seeds has been reported only once. We compared Marantaceae seed removal by crickets and ants to assess the role of crickets as secondary seed dispersers in Amazonia. Compared with ants, crickets dispersed an equivalent number of seeds and tended to disperse larger seeds farther. However, seed removal by crickets occurs mostly at night, suggesting that removal of arillate seeds by crickets on the tropical forest floor is probably being overlooked or wrongly attributed to other invertebrate groups. One potential consequence of seed dispersal by crickets may be a change in the local spatial distribution of arillate-seed species, due to lower aggregation around ant nests.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 71%