Ecological Interactions Shape the Dynamics of Seed Predation in Acrocomia aculeata (Arecaceae)

Pereira, Anielle C. F.; Fonseca, Francine Souza Alves da; Mota, Gleicielle R.; Fernandes, Ane K. C.; Fagundes, Marcílio; Reis-Junior, Ronaldo; Faria, Maurício Lopes de

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0098026

Cited by 21 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…The complex microstructure of this fruit shell consists of two main layers, i.e., one thin and harder outer layer near the external edge with cells having polyhedral shape, and a thick inner layer of entangled bundles of elongated sclereid cells with longer cells near the inner edge. This multi-layer arrangement with hardness decreasing from the outer layer to the inner layer may work as a protection against predators, such insects trying to penetrate the endocarp for oviposition 54 , small mammal herbivores and birds 55 . Acrocomia aculeata fruits may also be subjected to impact forces when they are transported by birds and some of them fall to the ground 55 , 56 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Microstructure and mechanical properties of hard Acrocomia mexicana fruit shell

Flores‐Johnson

Carrillo

Zhai

et al. 2018

Sci Rep

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Fruit and nut shells can exhibit high hardness and toughness. In the peninsula of Yucatan, Mexico, the fruit of the Cocoyol palm tree (Acrocomia mexicana) is well known to be very difficult to break. Its hardness has been documented since the 1500 s, and is even mentioned in the popular Maya legend The Dwarf of Uxmal. However, until now, no scientific studies quantifying the mechanical performance of the Cocoyol endocarp has been found in the literature to prove or disprove that this fruit shell is indeed “very hard”. Here we report the mechanical properties, microstructure and hardness of this material. The mechanical measurements showed compressive strength values of up to ~150 and ~250 MPa under quasi-static and high strain rate loading conditions, respectively, and microhardness of up to ~0.36 GPa. Our findings reveal a complex hierarchical structure showing that the Cocoyol shell is a functionally graded material with distinctive layers along the radial directions. These findings demonstrate that structure-property relationships make this material hard and tough. The mechanical results and the microstructure presented herein encourage designing new types of bioinspired superior synthetic materials.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Microstructure and mechanical properties of hard Acrocomia mexicana fruit shell

Flores‐Johnson

Carrillo

Zhai

et al. 2018

Sci Rep

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“…Competition (Kaplan & Denno, 2007;Mopper, 2005), escape from natural enemies (Egan & Ott, 2007;Karban & Agrawal, 2002), and resource depletion (Revilla, Encinas-Viso, & Loreau, 2014) are possible biological factors used to explain the variation in the herbivore community structure among temporary resource patches of the host plant. However, the role of those biological factors in shaping the structure of natural communities has been little tested experimentally (see Gurevitch, Morrison, & Hedges, 2000;Oliveira et al, 2013;Pereira et al, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Plant phenological asynchrony and community structure of gall‐inducing insects associated with a tropical tree species

Fagundes

Xavier

Faria

et al. 2018

Ecology and Evolution

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The dynamics of occurrence of target organs in plant populations produces windows of opportunity that directly and indirectly affect the structure of herbivore communities. However, mechanisms that drive herbivore specialization between resource patches are still poorly known. In this study, we tested three hypotheses related to variation in host plant phenology and community structure (i.e., composition, richness, and abundance) of gall‐forming species: (a) plants with early leaf‐flushing in the season will have greater vegetative growth and high contents of secondary chemical compounds; (b) gall‐inducing insect community structure changes among temporary resource patches of the host; and (c) interspecific competition is a probable mechanism that drives gall‐inducing insect community structure on Copaifera langsdorffii. We monitored daily a total of 102 individuals of the super‐host C. langsdorffii from August 2012 to May 2013, to characterize the leaf flushing time of each host plant. The leaf flushing time had a positive relationship with the number of folioles per branch and a negative relationship with branch growth. We sampled a total of 4,906 galls belonging to 24 gall‐inducing insect species from 102 individuals of C. langsdorffii. In spite of some gall‐inducing species presented high abundance on early leaf‐flushing plants, direct and indirect effects of plant phenology on galling insect abundance was species dependent. At the community level, our study revealed that the quality and quantity of plant resources did not affect the richness and abundance of gall‐inducing insects associated with C. langsdorffii. However, the richness and composition of gall‐inducing species varied according to the variation in leaf flushing time of the host plant. The results of null model analysis showed that galls co‐occurrence on C. langsdorffii trees differ more than expected by chance and that interspecific competition can be one potential mechanism structuring this gall‐inducing insect community.

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“…We observed predispersal seed predation in all sites sampled and a high variation in the number of seeds preyed on per individual of S. flexuosa . Although seed losses of the palm species reached a mean of 24% per individual and may suggest a low predation pressure compared with other palms (70% of seed loss), such as S. romanzoffiana growing in forest and woodland savanna (Brancalion et al, 2011) and for Acrocomia aculeata in savanna (Pereira et al, 2014), there was a large variation among studied individuals. In addition, crop size per palm was a very important driver of the number of seeds lost to predispersal seed predators.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Individual crop size increases predispersal predation by beetles in a tropical palm

et al. 2020

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Predispersal seed predation is one of the main causes of seed mortality in plant populations, contributing to decreased plant recruitment. Seed loss has previously been found to be related to crop size. Thus, we examined the influence of individual crop size on predispersal seed predation by beetles in the palm Syagrus flexuosa in the Brazilian savanna. The study was carried out in three tropical woodland savanna sites, where we sampled the total seed crop of 46 fruiting palms and checked the presence of beetle larvae inside all seeds per plant. We observed predispersal seed predation of S. flexuosa from all sites and a high variation in the number of seeds preyed on per individual palm. Crop size had a positive influence on the number of seeds lost to predispersal seed predators. Variations in levels of predispersal seed predation may also be accounted for by the reproductive phenology of S. flexuosa. If fruits are not available at the same time, less resource is available for predators and therefore a high proportion of seeds may be preyed on. Thus, our study demonstrates that an individual plant trait, crop size, is an important predictor of beetle seed damage per palm and a driver of the number of seeds lost to predispersal seed predators.

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Ecological Interactions Shape the Dynamics of Seed Predation in Acrocomia aculeata (Arecaceae)

Cited by 21 publications

References 60 publications

Microstructure and mechanical properties of hard Acrocomia mexicana fruit shell

Microstructure and mechanical properties of hard Acrocomia mexicana fruit shell

Plant phenological asynchrony and community structure of gall‐inducing insects associated with a tropical tree species

Individual crop size increases predispersal predation by beetles in a tropical palm

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