Fungal infestation boosts fruit aroma and fruit removal by mammals and birds

For four decades, an influential hypothesis has posited that competition for food resources between microbes and vertebrates selects for microbes to alter these resources in ways that make them unpalatable to vertebrates. We chose an understudied cross kingdom interaction to experimentally evaluate the effect of fruit infection by fungi on both vertebrate (mammals and birds) fruit preferences and on ecologically relevant fruit traits (volatile compounds, toughness, etc). Our well-replicated field experiments revealed that, in contrast to previous studies, frugivorous mammals and birds consistently preferred infested over intact fruits. This was concordant with the higher level of attractive volatiles (esters, ethanol) in infested fruits. This investigation suggests that vertebrate frugivores, fleshyfruited plants, and microbes form a tripartite interaction in which each part could interact positively with the other two (e.g. both orange seeds and fungal spores are likely dispersed by mammals). Such a mutualistic view of these complex interactions is opposed to the generalized idea of competition between frugivorous vertebrates and microorganisms. Thus, this research provides a new perspective on the widely accepted plant evolutionary dilemma to make fruits attractive to mutualistic frugivores while unattractive to presumed antagonistic microbes that constrain seed dispersalinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Ethnoecology in pluricultural contexts: Theoretical and methodological contributions

This chapter is a contribution to current ethnoecology from a complex perspective, through a revision of the presuppositions that constitute its theoretical–methodological framework. The systemic approach of ecology understood as a science of synthesis based on relationships between the organism and its environment is discussed. The complex thinking applied to biocultural ecology, based on the relationships between the people and their environment is also discussed, including a reflection about the dissociation between nature and culture, and its conceptual implications. Ethnoecology as the study of local people knowledge system about their own relationships with their environment poses a discussion on sciences and ethnosciences, and its relationships with ecology and biocultural ecology. The reflection about the relationships between the observer and the observed people implies a discussion upon the researcher’s presence in his own research, and how he manages his thinking categories. The role of interviews as communication systems in which the generated knowledge is embodied in actions (discourses and behaviors) is revalued. Ultimately, three cases for the Rio de la Plata riverside (Buenos Aires province, Argentina) are presented. These cases illustrate how the local people identify and value the environmental changes in the pluricultural contexts of the urban areas, and how the obtained results have meaning in the theoretical–methodological framework developed. In conclusion, complex thinking allows us to construct adequate explanations for complex phenomena that ethnoecology tries to explain, and to avoid reductionisms.Fil: Hurrell, Julio Alberto. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Laboratorio de Etnobotánica y Botánica Aplicada; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata; ArgentinaFil: Stampella, Pablo César. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Laboratorio de Etnobotánica y Botánica Aplicada; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata; ArgentinaFil: Doumecq, María Belén. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Laboratorio de Etnobotánica y Botánica Aplicada; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata; ArgentinaFil: Pochettino, María Lelia. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Laboratorio de Etnobotánica y Botánica Aplicada; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata; Argentin