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Native fauna interact differently with native and alien trees in a tropical megacity.
Deshpande, Purabi; Sharma, Rohan; Lehikoinen, Aleksi; Thorogood, Rose.
Afiliação
  • Deshpande P; HiLIFE Helsinki Institute of Life Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki FI-00011, Finland; Research Programme in Organismal & Evolutionary Biology, Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki FI-00011, Finland; The Helsinki Lab of Ornithology, Finnish
  • Sharma R; Ashoka Trust For Research In Ecology And The Environment, PO, Royal Enclave, Srirampura, Jakkur, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560064, India.
  • Lehikoinen A; The Helsinki Lab of Ornithology, Finnish Museum of Natural History, University of Helsinki, 9 P.O. Box 17, Helsinki FI-00014, Finland.
  • Thorogood R; HiLIFE Helsinki Institute of Life Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki FI-00011, Finland; Research Programme in Organismal & Evolutionary Biology, Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki FI-00011, Finland.
Sci Total Environ ; 868: 161683, 2023 Apr 10.
Article em En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-36690109
The negative effects of invasive alien plant species on natural ecosystems are well known. However, in rapidly growing cities, alien plants can provide native fauna with resources otherwise lost due to the biotic homogenization, which is common to urban ecosystems. Interactions of native fauna with alien flora have thus far focused largely on invertebrate pollinators in temperate cities in the northern hemisphere. Cities in tropical areas, however, are larger and are growing more rapidly, and host a variety of vertebrate pollinators. Understanding how birds and mammals interact with native and alien flora in these megacities could improve management of urban ecosystems in highly biodiverse regions while limiting invasion potential. Therefore, here we investigate whether native diurnal birds and mammals interact differently with native versus alien trees in Bengaluru, India where historical planting has led to an abundance of alien tree species. We find that tree origin alone was not an important predictor for bird species richness and abundance, but taller native trees with large floral display sizes were more species rich than alien trees of similar floral displays. As expected from their shared evolutionary history, nectarivorous birds fed from native trees more often in a manner that could facilitate pollination, but engaged in nectar theft more often with alien trees. Squirrels (the mammal observed most frequently to interact with flowers) were more likely, however, to depredate flowers of native trees. Our results suggest alien trees can be an important resource for fauna in expanding urban areas, and that nectar theft by birds could reduce the seed set of alien trees.
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Texto completo: 1 Coleções: 01-internacional Base de dados: MEDLINE Assunto principal: Árvores / Ecossistema Tipo de estudo: Prognostic_studies Limite: Animals Idioma: En Revista: Sci Total Environ Ano de publicação: 2023 Tipo de documento: Article

Texto completo: 1 Coleções: 01-internacional Base de dados: MEDLINE Assunto principal: Árvores / Ecossistema Tipo de estudo: Prognostic_studies Limite: Animals Idioma: En Revista: Sci Total Environ Ano de publicação: 2023 Tipo de documento: Article