Forest Cover and Bird Diversity: Drivers of Fruit Consumption in Forest Interiors in the Atlantic Forest of Southern Bahia, Brazil

Abstract

Forest loss and fragmentation change the dynamics and structure of remnant populations, ultimately affecting key processes with implications for ecosystem functioning. Fruit consumption has important consequences for seed dispersal, maintaining the plant demography, which is also critical to the populations of animals that utilize them for resources. Therefore, understanding how forest cover reduction affects fruit consumption and, consequently, seed dispersal is essential to informing conservation policy for the remaining forest patches. This study was conducted in 20 forest sites with varying amounts of forest cover (from 6% - 85%) located in the Atlantic forest of southern Bahia, Brazil. We investigated whether forest loss and local bird diversity affected fruit consumption rates in the forest edge and interior. We used artificial fruit to estimate fruit consumption by birds. At each site, we set up 14 experimental stations, one located on the forest edge (∼3m) and the others in the forest interior (75 m), each one composed of 15 artificial fruits fixed to a plant. Our results showed that forest loss and the reduction of bird abundance led to a decrease in fruit consumption in the forest interiors, but not on the forest edges. This verifies that forest cover loss results in changes in fruit consumption, and has important consequences for seed dispersal by birds in forest remnants.