Abstract
Fish can act as dispersal vectors for many plant species, and this mutualistic relationship is critical for structuring and regeneration in Amazonian floodable forests. However, anthropogenic threats, such as the deforestation of floodable forests and the overfishing of some species, can disrupt this mutualistic interaction. We investigated the relationship between the size of fish that consume fruits and seeds and the size of seeds retrieved from the fish in the floodable forests. We hypothesize that, in floodable forests, fish with larger body size disperse the larger seeds. A total of 1,054 seeds from 16 plant species were found in the digestive tracts of nine species of frugivorous fish. The length and weight of the fish were positively related with the size of the seeds found in the digestive tracts. The reduction in fish abundance and size may affect dispersal and regeneration, especially of species with larger seeds. Considering the diverse threats to interactions between fish and Amazonian forested wetlands, our study highlights the importance of adequate management of fishery resources and floodable forests for the maintenance of ecosystem services of these environments in the region.
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Data Availability
All data used in this study are available from the corresponding author on request.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Amazonas (FAPEAM) and the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES). We also thank the botanist José Ramos for the identification of the plant species, as well as the field assistants and riverine communities.
Funding
This project was financed and executed within the scope of the Long-Term Ecological Research Program - PELD/MAUA - Phase II, of the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) and run by the MAUA (Ecologia, Monitoramento e Uso Sustentável de Áreas Úmidas) research group of the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (INPA), within the project “Ecology and monitoring of the vegetation of oligotrophic wetlands in the Central Amazon: anthropogenic impacts and implications for conservation in protected areas in the Negro and Uatumã River basins”, grant number 441590/2016-0– CNPq, the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Amazonas (FAPEAM) and the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES). It was also supported by INCT ADAPTA, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology - KIT (Germany) and the bilateral Amazon Tall Tower Observatory (ATTO) project.
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Gilvan Costa, Bianca Weiss and Maria Teresa Fernandez Piedade. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Gilvan Costa and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Costa, G., Weiss, B. & Piedade, M.T.F. Larger Fish Disperse Larger Seeds in Oligotrophic Wetlands of the Central Amazon. Wetlands 44, 18 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-024-01779-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-024-01779-7