148 research outputs found
Has frugivory influenced the macroecology and diversification of a tropical keystone plant family?
A synthesis of animal-mediated seed dispersal of palms reveals distinct biogeographic differences in species interactions
Biodiversity Observations Miner: A web application to unlock primary biodiversity data from published literature
Use and categorization of Light Detection and Ranging vegetation metrics in avian diversity and species distribution research
eEcoLiDAR, eScience infrastructure for ecological applications of LiDAR point clouds:reconstructing the 3D ecosystem structure for animals at regional to continental scales
Independent variation of avian sensitivity to climate change and trait-based adaptive capacity along a tropical elevational gradient
Independent variation of avian sensitivity to climate change and trait-based adaptive capacity along a tropical elevational gradient
The potential importance of unburned islands as refugia for the persistence of wildlife species in fire-prone ecosystems
Africa as an evolutionary arena for large fruits
Strong paleoclimatic change and few Late Quaternary megafauna extinctions make mainland Africa unique among continents. Here, we hypothesize that, compared with elsewhere, these conditions created the ecological opportunity for the macroevolution and geographic distribution of large fruits. We assembled global phylogenetic, distribution and fruit size data for palms (Arecaceae), a pantropical, vertebrate-dispersed family with > 2600 species, and integrated these with data on extinction-driven body size reduction in mammalian frugivore assemblages since the Late Quaternary. We applied evolutionary trait, linear and null models to identify the selective pressures that have shaped fruit sizes. We show that African palm lineages have evolved towards larger fruit sizes and exhibited faster trait evolutionary rates than lineages elsewhere. Furthermore, the global distribution of the largest palm fruits across species assemblages was explained by occurrence in Africa, especially under low canopies, and extant megafauna, but not by mammalian downsizing. These patterns strongly deviated from expectations under a null model of stochastic (Brownian motion) evolution. Our results suggest that Africa provided a distinct evolutionary arena for palm fruit size evolution. We argue that megafaunal abundance and the expansion of savanna habitat since the Miocene provided selective advantages for the persistence of African plants with large fruits.</p
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