Kim R Mcconkey

Fruiting trees provide important fruit and seed resources for various animal species, but rarely are they considered to be rich sources of insects as well. During a study of seed dispersal of Trewia nudiflora (Euphorbiaceae) using camera traps in Nepal, we observed four tropical deer species (Axis axis, Muntiacus vaginalis, Rusa unicolor, Axis porc...

The extinction of megafauna, such as rhinos, from tropical Asian forests may have detrimental effects on the regeneration of plant species that rely heavily on their dispersal services. Understanding the potential of other animals to substitute the ecological function of megafauna is important for predicting ecosystem change following declines or e...

The process of seed dispersal that underpins ecosystem maintenance is performed by diverse arrays of fruit‐eating animals. However, seed dispersal studies are primarily focused on a subset of these animal communities that disperse seeds by endozoochory. Stomatochory (seed dispersal in which seeds are carried externally and are not swallowed) is rar...

We provide an overview of the current state of knowledge of island frugivory and seed dispersal and identify knowledge gaps that are important for fundamental research on—and applied conservation of—island ecosystems. We conducted a systematic literature search of frugivory and seed dispersal on islands, omitting large, continental islands. This re...

Plastic pollution is potentially a major threat to the health of terrestrial organisms, including megafauna, but its effects are relatively understudied compared to marine ecosystems. Here we document the presence of plastic macro-particles in the dung of the greater one-horned rhino (𝘙𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘦𝘳𝘰𝘴 𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘴) in the Terai landscape of Nepal. Field dat...

Mutualistic and antagonistic plant–animal interactions differentially contribute to the maintenance of species diversity in ecological communities. Although both seed dispersal and predation by fruit-eating animals are recognized as important drivers of plant population dynamics, the mechanisms underlying how seed dispersers and predators jointly a...

Megaherbivores exert strong top-down influence on the ecosystems they inhabit, yet little is known about the foraging impacts of Asian elephants ( Elephas maximus ) on the structure of Southeast Asia’s rainforests. Our goal was to document Asian elephants’ dietary composition, selectivity, and foraging impacts in a Sundaic rainforest and test wheth...

Larger animals are assumed to ingest larger seeds and consume larger fruits, but empirical studies reveal inconsistent trends between body mass and the average size of fruits and seeds ingested. Furthermore, no studies have explored seed size relationships with morphological traits, such as skull dimensions. Such characteristics might provide more...

Southeast Asia is a conservation priority region due to its high biodiversity—including megafauna—and high rates of defaunation, which has negative impacts on key ecological processes such as seed dispersal. Yet, seed dispersal interactions at the community level have rarely been described in this region. This is a major knowledge gap because mediu...

The study of seed dispersal in tropical forest communities is complicated by the high diversity of frugivores and the complex interactions among species and their environments. Determining which species are effective dispersers and which are opportunists with neutral or even negative effects on fruiting plants is a major problem which requires deta...

Aim For tens of millions of years, herbivorous megafauna were abundant across the globe, fulfilling important ecological roles including seed dispersal. Megafruits are very large fruits that are dispersed most effectively by megafauna. However, megafruits also occur in ecosystems where megafauna are extinct or were never present, emphasizing our in...

Diverse assemblages of seed‐dispersing megafauna once existed in Asian rainforests, but are now almost solely represented by elephants. Asia's rhinos persist in remnant, ecologically extinct populations and the most threatened of these is the Sumatran rhino, Dicerorhinus sumatrensis . To understand the seed dispersal role of Sumatran rhinos, we con...

Large‐bodied animals play irreplaceable roles in seed dispersal, partly due to their capacity to disperse large seeds. Understanding this role at a community level has been limited by the paucity of network studies that include large vertebrates, and the almost complete absence of studies including synzoochoric dispersers. Synzoochoric dispersers c...

Collecting interaction data to build frugivory or seed dispersal networks is logistically challenging in ecosystems that have very high plant and animal diversity and/or where fieldwork is difficult or dangerous. Consequently, the majority of available networks are from ecosystems with low species diversity or they represent a subset of the communi...

Many oceanic islands lacked mammalian seed predators until humans introduced rats (Rattus spp.). Introduced rats are considered major seed predators on the islands where they occur, but their capacity to assist native plant recruitment through secondary dispersal, or diplochory, is poorly known. We monitored fates of >1000 naturally and artificiall...

Anthropogenic provisioning of food to wildlife is ubiquitous across the globe. It may be intentional such as in the form of bird feeders or offering of food to animals by tourists, or unintentional when animals use anthropogenic food sources like crops, plantations or garbage dumps. Provisioning has profound effects on wildlife ecology and behaviou...

Despite extensive documentation of the ecological and economic importance of Old World fruit bats (Chiroptera: Pteropodidae) and the many threats they face from humans, negative attitudes towards pteropodids have persisted, fuelled by perceptions of bats as being pests and undesirable neighbours. Such long-term negativity towards bats is now furthe...

Human colonization of islands has resulted in the reduction or loss of many native species, and the introduction of non‐native species, producing novel ecosystems. The impacts of these changes on mutualistic plant–animal interactions have received considerable attention, but the potential effects on some antagonistic interactions, such as seed pred...

Humans have caused immense disturbances to the Earth’s wild ecosystems. Here, I explain how these disturbances are impacting and altering the essential roles or functions of animals in these ecosystems. Population declines, as well as behavioural and morphological changes in animals as a response to disturbance, alters how organisms interact with e...

We use individual-based information on the behavior of wild female Japanese macaques in two consecutive years with different food availability (nut-rich vs. nut-poor) to test effects of dominance rank and nut fruiting on seed dispersal parameters. We predicted that social rank would affect dispersal (1) quantity, (2) quality, (3) species richness,...

Ecological effects of alien species can be dramatic, but management and prevention of negative impacts are often hindered by crypticity of the species or their ecological functions. Ecological functions can change dramatically over time, or manifest after long periods of an innocuous presence. Such cryptic processes may lead to an underestimation o...

Irvingia malayana is a large-fruited and large-seeded tree species of Southeast Asia. As a large-fruited tree, it interacts with large mammal consumers, which either disperse or consume its seeds. In this preliminary study, we describe functional differences between Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) and wild boars (Sus scrofa) in their interactions...

The world’s largest terrestrial animals (megafauna) can play profound roles in seed dispersal. Yet, the term ‘megafauna’ is often used to encompass a diverse range of body sizes and physiologies of, primarily, herbivorous animals. To determine the extent to which these animals varied in their seed dispersal effectiveness (SDE), we compared the cont...

Fate of Platymitra macrocarpa seeds away from parent trees, Khao Yai National Park. Seeds were monitored in groups of 5 along two trails, 25 m apart and at least 50 m from the closest fruiting con-specific. (XLSX)

Number of fruit, partly-eaten fruit and seeds found along transects under four fruiting trees of Platymitra macrocarpa, in Khao Yai National Park. Transects were 1 m wide and of varying length to match the crown spread of each tree; there were 4 transects per tree. Transects were checked every 1–2 days. Data are recorded alongside the check date. N...

Measurements of Platymitra macrocarpa fruits and seeds in 2015. Fruit and seeds are taken from four fruiting trees found on and nearby the Mo Singto Dynamics Plot, Khao Yai. Seeds were taken from whole fruit, or found in elephant dung or were regurgitated by sambar. (XLSX)

Fate of whole fruit, partly-eaten fruit and seeds monitored under fruiting Platymitra macrocarpa trees, Khao Yai National Park. Fallen and dropped fruit and seeds were monitored under 3 trees for 7 months. (XLSX)

Table A. Details of where cameras were placed, dates they were placed and photos captured. Table B. Animals captured by camera traps under fruiting Platymitra macrocarpa trees. (XLSX)

Table A. Count of seedlings under and away from three Platymitra macrocarpa trees. Trees were checked in 2016, one year after fruiting. Distances are in m. Table B. Dimensions of transects walked. Values are Length x Width and are given in m. (XLSX)

Primates are among the most important seed dispersers in the habitats they occupy. Understanding the extent of, and gaps in, our knowledge of seed dispersal by Asian primates is essential, because many of these primates are extremely vulnerable to anthropogenic disturbance. In this review, I show how initial studies focused on the role of individua...

Understanding the mutualisms between frugivores and plants is essential for developing successful forest management and conservation strategies, especially in tropical rainforests where the majority of plants are dispersed by animals. Gibbons are among the most effective seed dispersers in South East Asia's tropical forests, but are also one of the...

Video S1: Island flying fox (Pteropus hypomelanus) feeding on durian nectar.

Video S4: Aggressive feeding interactions between two P. hypomelanus individuals.

Video S5: Territorial wing‐clapping behaviour by P. hypomelanus in response to E spelaea.

Video S2: Cave nectar bats (Eonycteris spelaea) feeding on durian nectar.

Video S3: P. hypomelanus defending durian flowers from E. spelaea.

Fruit bats provide valuable pollination services to humans through a unique coevolutionary relationship with chiropterophilous plants. However, chiropterophily in the Old World and the pollination roles of large bats, such as flying foxes (Pteropus spp., Acerodon spp., Desmalopex spp.), are still poorly understood and require further elucidation. E...

There is an urgent need to identify and understand the ecosystem services provided by threatened animal species such as flying foxes. The first step towards this is to obtain comprehensive data on their diet. However, the volant and nocturnal nature of flying foxes presents a challenging situation, and conventional microhistological approaches to s...

Sequence alignment of partial rbcL genes for plants collected from Tioman Island Residues that are divergent across all sequences are highlighted in green (>90% similarity) and yellow (<90% similarity).

Spatio-temporal trends in consumption of OTU 7 (Moraceae) by flying foxes, suggesting possible inter-roost variation at Juara and Tekek villages between March and October 2016 on Tioman Island

Number of droppings per roost sampled from Juara (1406 droppings) and Tekek (1,336 droppings) over 8 months on Tioman Island

Monthly roost counts of flying foxes in Tekek and Juara villages Monthly roost counts of flying foxes in Tekek and Juara villages between Mar and Oct 2015, Tioman Island. Due to the accessibility of the roosts, these counts were found to be more accurate than exit/emergence/fly-out counts. Exit counts were found to be impractical, as the bats did n...

Overview of our newly designed primers for this study and expected construct consisting of the complete Illumina adapter, dual index barcode and partial rbcL gene.

Maximum likelihood phylogenetic tree Maximum likelihood phylogenetic tree depicting the evolutionary relationship among rbcL sequences obtained from individually collected leaf samples (red-coloured tips) of potential flying fox food plants and rbcL sequences from online reference databases. PTMN codes refer to barcodes generated in this study and...

Primers used in this study for the amplification of rbcL gene fragment from flying fox droppings

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Summary information of 19 potential flying fox food plant reference specimens Summary information of 19 potential flying fox food plant reference specimens obtained from Tioman Island, Peninsular Malaysia: identification of plant specimen based on morphology, genus match(tick)/non-match(cross) based on rbcL sequences (Fig. 3), approximate GPS coord...

Most primate species inhabit tropical forests where their requirements for population persistence are often in direct conflict with the needs of people. Primates are threatened by direct loss of habitat, as well as more subtle changes in habitat structure and resource distribution caused by forest-product harvesting by humans, climate change, and p...

There is an urgent need to identify and understand the ecosystem services provided by threatened animal species such as flying foxes. The first step towards this is to obtain comprehensive data on their diet. However, the volant and nocturnal nature of flying foxes presents a challenging situation, and conventional microhistological approaches to s...

There is an urgent need to identify and understand the ecosystem services provided by threatened animal species such as flying foxes. The first step towards this is to obtain comprehensive data on their diet. However, the volant and nocturnal nature of flying foxes presents a challenging situation, and conventional microhistological approaches to s...

Seed dispersal is a key ecological process with ~50–80 % of all tropical plants depending on animals to provide this service. Wide-ranging and large-bodied species are believed to play a disproportionately important role in the seed dispersal process. Although mounting evidence demonstrates a strong role for large herbivores in seed dispersal, our...

Human provisioning of wildlife with food is a widespread global practice that occurs in multiple socio-cultural circumstances. Provisioning may indirectly alter ecosystem functioning through changes in the eco-ethology of animals, but few studies have quantified this aspect. Provisioning of primates by humans is known to impact their activity budge...

The largest fruits found in tropical forests may depend on complementary seed dispersal strategies. These fruits are dispersed most effectively by megafauna, but populations can persist where megafauna are absent or erratic visitors. Smaller animals often consume these large fruits, but their capacity to disperse these seeds effectively has rarely...

In the forests of Khao Yai National Park, Thailand, gibbons (Hylobates lar) were the most effective seed disperser of the large-fruited Garcinia benthamii. The fruits were at the upper size limit of what the gibbons could process, however, and we found evidence that suggests these large fruits might be more efficiently dispersed by elephants, which...

Fruit bats (Pteropodidae) are known to provide valuable ecosystem services to humans. The pollination services of nectarivorous bats such as Eonycteris spelaea, particularly for commercially important trees such as durian (Durio zibethinus) are now well documented. However, the pollination roles of larger fruit bats such as flying foxes (Pteropus s...

The low species diversity that often characterizes island ecosystems could result in low functional redundancy within communities. Flying foxes (large fruit bats) are important seed dispersers of large-seeded species, but their redundancy within island communities has never been explicitly tested. In a Pacific archipelago, we found that flying foxe...

The essential functional roles performed by animal species are lost when they become locally extinct, and ecosystems are critically threatened by this decline in functional diversity. Theory that links function, diversity, and ecosystem stability exists but fails to assess function loss that occurs in species with persistent populations. The entire...

The largest fruits found in tropical forests may depend on complementary seed dispersal strategies. These fruits are dispersed most effectively by megafauna, but populations can persist where megafauna are absent or erratic visitors. Smaller animals often consume these large fruits, but their capacity to disperse these seeds effectively has rarely...

Frugivorous primates are important seed dispersers and their absence from forest patches is predicted to be detrimental to tropical forest regeneration and recruitment. With the reduction of primate populations globally, ecologically resilient primate species, characterized by dietary flexibility and the ability to thrive in a variety of habitats,...

The Atlantic forest of Brazil is a biodiversity hot spot, but is extremely fragmented. Local extinction of important seed dispersers, such as primates, threatens the maintenance of these fragments. It is important to evaluate the capacity of fragment-tolerant species to disperse seeds and help maintain plant communities within fragments. Green igua...

Frugivores with disparate foraging behavior are considered to vary in their seed dispersal effectiveness (SDE). Measured SDEs for gibbons and macaques for a ‘primate-fruit’ were comparable despite the different foraging and movement behavior of the primates. This could help facilitate fruit trait convergence in diverse fruit–frugivore networks.บทคั...

Many frugivorous primates are known to be the main seed dispersers for a range of plant species, and hence are considered ecologically critical species. This recognition though is only reserved for a few species, and many common and widespread species have been ignored in this context. Akin to many common primate species, the rhesus macaque Macaca...

Ticktin et al . (2012) attempted to disentangle multiple stressors impacting harvested populations of amla ( P hyllanthus emblica and P . indofischeri ) [Ticktin et al . (2012) Disentangling the effects of multiple anthropogenic drivers on the decline of two tropical dry forest trees. Journal of Applied Ecology , 49 , 774–784.]. We propose that an...

Background/Question/Methods As a result of human colonization of the Pacific Islands, most native seed-dispersing animals have become rare or extinct, and a diverse array of alien animals has invaded and proliferated. Because seed dispersal plays a key role in forest community dynamics, this shift has the potential to significantly affect forest...

A growing understanding of the ecology of seed dispersal has so far had little influence on conservation practice, while the needs of conservation practice have had little influence on seed dispersal research. Yet seed dispersal interacts decisively with the major drivers of biodiversity change in the 21st century: habitat fragmentation, overharves...

Plant species with generalized dispersal mutualisms are considered to be robust to local frugivore extinctions because of redundancy between dispersal agents. However, real redundancy can only occur if frugivores have similar foraging and ranging patterns and if fruit is a limiting resource. We evaluated the quantitative and qualitative contributio...

It has long been assumed that Sumatran forests are of higher quality for orangutans than Bornean forests, and that this is both the proximate and ultimate cause of many of the differences in socio-ecology between the two orangutan species. Yet this hypothesis has remained untested. This chapter presents data on the phenology and floristics of eight...

It has long been assumed that Sumatran forests are of higher quality for orangutans than Bornean forests, and that this is both the proximate and ultimate cause of many of the differences in socio-ecology between the two orangutan species. Yet this hypothesis has remained untested. This chapter presents data on the phenology and floristics of eight...

Although flying foxes (fruit bats in the genus Pteropus) in continental forests often fly between scattered resources, little is known about their ranging behavior among islands. The inhospitable water matrix that surrounds the food patches (islands) in archipelagos may prevent flying foxes from tracking resources as efficiently as their counterpar...

Frugivores display daily and seasonal behavioural variation, yet the influence of this variability on subsequent seed shadows is rarely considered. We investigated the extent to which three aspects of gibbon (Hylobates muelleri × agilis) foraging and ranging behaviour (revisitation of favoured fruit sources, daily and monthly ranging patterns) infl...

Regeneration of the Brazilian Caatinga forest may be restricted by the naturally low diversity and density of fruit-eating animals, which has been aggravated by local faunal extinction induced by human activities. We made a preliminary evaluation of the potential seed-dispersal role of capuchin (Cebus apella libidinosus) and howler monkeys (Alouatt...

Rare species play limited ecological roles, but particular behavioral traits may predispose species to become functionally extinct before becoming rare. Flying foxes (Pteropodid fruit bats) are important dispersers of large seeds, but their effectiveness is hypothesized to depend on high population density that induces aggressive interactions. In a...

The influence of tide, time and weather on activity and habitat use of four species of wader were studied at Waikanae Estuary, New Zealand, from late January to late April to assess spatial and temporal segregation among species. Although flock activity was influenced by these abiotic variables in similar ways across all species, movements of activ...

Abstract Although pigeons from the genus Ducula are considered among the best avian dispersers of large seeds in Asia and the Pacific, little has been documented on their role. The early fate of dispersed and undispersed seeds of the large-seeded tree Myristica hypargyraea A. Gray was studied in order to understand the advantage of seed dispersal b...