Climate change reshapes the eco‐evolutionary dynamics of a Neotropical seed dispersal system

Abstract

Aim Global changes will redistribute biodiversity, reshaping ecological interactions and ecosystem processes. The decoupling in the distribution of plants and their mutualistic seed dispersers, for instance, may have overlooked eco‐evolutionary effects. How animal‐dispersed plants will respond to changes in the distribution of their seed dispersers remains largely an open question. Here, we forecast the consequences of climate change and frugivory interactions for the spatial distribution and seed size evolution of a Neotropical palm species. Location Atlantic forests of South America. Time period Present day, end of 21st century. Major taxa studied Thirty‐two species of frugivorous birds, and a palm (Euterpe edulis). Methods Future patterns of animal–plant co‐occurrence were derived from ecological niche models, climate forecasts, projections of future forest loss, and seed dispersal simulations. We further explored the evolutionary effect of the spatial reorganization of interactions by modelling palm seed sizes as a function of changes in the distribution of frugivore traits. Results Our models indicate that future climate change and deforestation may reduce the palm’s suitable distribution by 20%–50%. However, our simulations suggest that 66% of all remaining future suitable distribution (76,200 km2) would still be inaccessible to the palm without the active dispersal of seeds by frugivores. In addition, novel frugivore communities are projected to have smaller mean body mass and gape size (−23% and −10%, respectively), due to the loss of large frugivores, which may translate into a 6%–17% reduction of seed sizes across the palm’s remaining distribution. Main conclusions Our projections indicate that frugivore seed dispersal may be critical to allow occupancy of future habitat by animal‐dispersed plants. However, loss of large frugivores may affect trait selection regimes, creating hotspots of plant evolution towards smaller seeds. We argue that such complex dynamics emerging from species‐specific responses to global change may reshape the distribution and evolution of several interacting partners worldwide.

Fruit colour and range size interact to influence diversification

“…Fruit colour is tightly linked to dispersal and therefore to geographic range in plants. Fruit colour determines what frugivores consume which fruits and thereby disperse seeds, which together influences plant evolutionary rate (Onstein et al, 2017;Sales et al, 2021). Here we combined macroecological and macroevolutionary approaches to determine the impact of fruit colour (and hence frugivore seed-dispersal interactions) on palm range size and diversification rate.…”

“…birds, bats, non flying mammals, reptiles, insects, and fishes) to disperse their seeds (Zona & Henderson, 1989). This mutualistic interaction has been important in shaping palm distribution patterns over space and time (Lim, Svenning, Göldel, Faurby, & Kissling, 2020;Onstein et al, 2018;Sales, Kissling, Galetti, Naimi, & Pires, 2021). Here, we test the impact of the interplay between fruit colour on range size and diversification rate in palms (Arecaceae).…”

The Critical Importance of Old World Fruit Bats for Healthy Ecosystems and Economies

“…Pteropodids locate flowers and fruits using olfaction primarily, but the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that they use as a guide could be altered by climate change (Yuan et al, 2009). However, while impacts of climate change are already being predicted for Neotropical pollination (e.g., Zamora-Gutiérrez et al, 2021) and seed dispersal (e.g., bird dispersal of a palm; Sales et al, 2021), potential effects on the ecological roles of pteropodids have not yet been studied.…”

Impacts of climate change on interacting plant and bird species : a trait-based perspective

“…The flexibility of avian frugivores to change to other fruit resources might reduce the negative impacts of climate change on avian seed dispersal (Bender et al 2017). Nevertheless, eventually, a mismatch between plant and bird traits could cause evolutionary changes in plant assemblages, for instance, with negative consequences for large-fruited plant species (Galetti et al 2013;Onstein et al 2018;Sales et al 2021a).…”

“…Quantifying species' dispersal is key for predicting species' ability to track rapid climate change , Sales et al 2021. The dispersal ability of plant species relates to present-day range filling (Estrada et al 2015) and range expansion during past climate change (Hampe 2011).…”