Article (Scientific journals)
Predicting frugivore generated seed rain in different environmental contexts: a modelling approach applied to a forest specialist
Zanette, Eduardo M.; Bialozyt, Ronald B.; Santos, Mayara M. et al.
2025 • In Ecological Modelling, 505, p. 111093
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Keywords :
Dispersal kernel; Individual-based model (IBM); Movement ecology; Pattern-oriented modelling (POM); Plant-animal interactions; Primate seed dispersal; Individual-based model; Individual-based modelling; Movement ecologies; Pattern-oriented modeling; Plant-animal interaction; Seed dispersal; Seed rain; Ecology; Ecological Modeling
Abstract :
[en] Frugivorous primates play a key role in the regeneration of tropical forests, ecosystems that have been heavily deforested and altered, by dispersing viable seeds via endozoochory. Due to their highly contingent and site-specific behavioural and ranging responses to habitat change, simulation models can help to better understand the consequences of different environmental contexts on their seed dispersal services. Here, we extended a previously developed agent-based model (ABM), to reproduce, in silico, the spatially explicit seed dispersal pattern (seed rain) of an endangered Neotropical primate, the black lion tamarin (Leontopithecus chrysopygus). The model focused on behavioural modes, thus integrating responses to resources (fruiting trees) with motion capacity and internal energy state. We validated the model with data from four lion tamarin groups inhabiting forest fragments of different sizes: one small (100 ha), one medium-sized (515 ha), one continuous (33800 ha) and one riparian forest. In all four forest types, our model produced realistic movement patterns as well as seed dispersal patterns generated by these lion tamarin groups, suggesting it captured most of the processes resulting in the seed rain. We compared the simulated patterns with observed patterns by comparing the used area (hectares), daily path length, activity budget, movement rate, path twisting and the defendability index (all related to movement). Simulated used areas only matched with empirical observations after the implementation of resource monitoring behaviour at the territory border. This underlines the need of specific behavioural rules based on the pattern-based modelling approach to successfully generate the observed patterns. The model slightly overestimated the seed dispersal distance (SDD) and the pattern of seed deposition was less aggregated than observed empirically, but still congruent with sampling limitations. The model can run on a small set of parameters that can be estimated within a few days of data collection (feeding and sleeping tree coordinates and group behaviour sampling), thus having the potential to predict the seed rain from multiple groups of lion tamarins. Finally, we discussed potential improvements and encouraged replication of such modelling efforts to other forest dependent species, enabling a spatially explicit evaluation of the processes guiding the seed rain by forest specialists in different environmental contexts.
Disciplines :
Environmental sciences & ecology
Author, co-author :
Zanette, Eduardo M. ;  São Paulo State University (UNESP), Institute of Biosciences, Department of Biodiversity, Primatology Lab, Rio Claro, Brazil ; Northwest German Forest Research Institute, Göttingen, Germany ; Verhaltensökologie & Soziobiologie, Deutsches Primatenzentrum – Leibniz-Institut für Primatenforschung, Göttingen, Germany
Bialozyt, Ronald B. ;  Northwest German Forest Research Institute, Göttingen, Germany
Santos, Mayara M. ;  São Paulo State University (UNESP), Institute of Biosciences, Department of Biodiversity, Primatology Lab, Rio Claro, Brazil ; Northwest German Forest Research Institute, Göttingen, Germany ; Verhaltensökologie & Soziobiologie, Deutsches Primatenzentrum – Leibniz-Institut für Primatenforschung, Göttingen, Germany
de Almeida e Silva, Anne Sophie ;  São Paulo State University (UNESP), Institute of Biosciences, Department of Biodiversity, Primatology Lab, Rio Claro, Brazil
Bufalo, Felipe ;  São Paulo State University (UNESP), Institute of Biosciences, Department of Biodiversity, Primatology Lab, Rio Claro, Brazil
Kaisin, Olivier ;  Université de Liège - ULiège > Département GxABT > Plant Sciences ; São Paulo State University (UNESP), Institute of Biosciences, Department of Biodiversity, Primatology Lab, Rio Claro, Brazil
Messaoudi, Yness ;  São Paulo State University (UNESP), Institute of Biosciences, Department of Biodiversity, Primatology Lab, Rio Claro, Brazil ; University of Rennes 1, Rennes, France
Alcolea, Mirela ;  São Paulo State University (UNESP), Institute of Biosciences, Department of Biodiversity, Primatology Lab, Rio Claro, Brazil
Heymann, Eckhard W. ;  Verhaltensökologie & Soziobiologie, Deutsches Primatenzentrum – Leibniz-Institut für Primatenforschung, Göttingen, Germany
Culot, Laurence ;  Université de Liège - ULiège > Département de Biologie, Ecologie et Evolution > Biologie du comportement - Ethologie et psychologie animale ; São Paulo State University (UNESP), Institute of Biosciences, Department of Biodiversity, Primatology Lab, Rio Claro, Brazil
Language :
English
Title :
Predicting frugivore generated seed rain in different environmental contexts: a modelling approach applied to a forest specialist
Publication date :
June 2025
Journal title :
Ecological Modelling
ISSN :
0304-3800
eISSN :
1872-7026
Publisher :
Elsevier B.V.
Volume :
505
Pages :
111093
Peer reviewed :
Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi
Funders :
CNPq - Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico
CAPES - Coordenação de Aperfeicoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior
Funding text :
This study was carried out with the financial support of S\u00E3o Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP 2014/14739\u20100 and 2021/06668\u20100). Further support was provided by Disney Conservation Fund, Whitley Fund for Nature, Lion Tamarins of Brazil Fund and Primate Action Fund (the last four provided to the Black Lion Tamarin Conservation Program/IP\u00CA). We thank the grants provided by Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq, grant numbers 130909/2020-3, 141813/2017-2, 133172/2018-0 and 443489/2020\u20103), FAPESP (grants 2020/11129-8, 2021/10284-2, 2018/15625-0, 2023/01760-0), Coordena\u00E7\u00E3o de Aperfei\u00E7oamento de Pessoal de N\u00EDvel Superior (CAPES, grant 88881.846203/2023-01) and FRS-FNRS (Belgium). LC receives a Research Productivity Fellowship from CNPq (#314964/2021-5). EMZ thanks San Fe Institute/Complexity Explorer for a fully funded course on ABMs. We thank two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on a previous version of the manuscript. We further thank Nathan Ranc for helpful discussion on home range emergence and null movement models, and \u00C9. G. da Rocha and C. Gestich for reviewing earlier versions of the manuscript. We thank the Ecological Modelling group in G\u00F6ttingen (K. Meyer, M. Spangenberg, S. Han\u00DF, B. Hess, S. Fiedler) for useful comments on the calibration and sensitivity analysis and for support with nlrx; M. C. Ribeiro for the workstation; M. C. Ribeiro, B. Niebuhr and M. Alves-Eigenher for earlier comments on the project; M. C. C\u00F4rtes for conceptual comments on seed dispersal kernels; G. C. Rezende for the elaboration of Fig. 1 and the Black Lion Tamarin Conservation Program of IP\u00CA - Instituto de Pesquisas Ecol\u00F3gicas for support with field expeditions and logistics.This study was carried out with the financial support of S\u00E3o Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP 2014/14739\u20100 and 2021/06668\u20100). Further support was provided by Disney Conservation Fund, Whitley Fund for Nature, Lion Tamarins of Brazil Fund and Primate Action Fund (the last four provided to the Black Lion Tamarin Conservation Program/IP\u00CA). We thank the grants provided by Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq, grant numbers 130909/2020-3, 141813/2017-2, 133172/2018-0 and 443489/2020\u20103), FAPESP (grants 2020/11129-8, 2021/10284-2, 2018/15625-0, 2023/01760-0), Coordena\u00E7\u00E3o de Aperfei\u00E7oamento de Pessoal de N\u00EDvel Superior (CAPES, grant 88881.846203/2023-01) and FRS-FNRS (Belgium). LC receives a Research Productivity Fellowship from CNPq (#314964/2021-5).
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