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Changes in seed rain during secondary succession in a tropical montane cloud forest region in Oaxaca, Mexico

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2008

R. F. del Castillo  and
M. A. Pérez Ríos
R. F. del Castillo*
Affiliation:
CIIDIR-Oaxaca, Instituto Politécnico Nacional, Hornos 1003, Xoxocotlan, Oaxaca 71230, México
M. A. Pérez Ríos
Affiliation:
CIIDIR-Oaxaca, Instituto Politécnico Nacional, Hornos 1003, Xoxocotlan, Oaxaca 71230, México
*
1Corresponding author. Email: [email protected], [email protected]
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Abstract

Seed dispersal is the first stage of colonization, and potentially affects recruitment. This process deserves more attention in tropical montane cloud forests (TMCF), since secondary succession is common owing to episodic disturbances. We studied annual seed rain in 10 nearby forest stands, ≈7 to ≈100 y following shifting agriculture, and one primary forest stand in southern Mexico to test the hypothesis that seed rain is limited at the scale of neighbouring fragments and that such limitation differs among species with different dispersal modes and successional origin. Annual seed rain was heterogeneous among forest fragments probably due to the prevalence of local seed dispersal, differences in stand age and the proportion of zoochory, and may help explain the patchy distribution of species observed in TMCF. Seed rain abundance and species diversity per unit trap area increased with the age of the stand. Biotically dispersed seeds increased towards older stands relative to abiotically dispersed seeds. Late-successional seeds were rarer in early successional stands than pioneer seeds in late-successional stands, suggesting that long-distance dispersal is generally more common for pioneer plants. Seed dispersal appears to constrain forest regeneration and to influence fragment species composition as a function of the distance from the source forests.

Keywords

dispersaldisturbancediversityfragmentationfrugivoryMexicomontane forestpioneerssecondary forestseed dispersal
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Tropical Ecology , Volume 24 , Issue 4 , July 2008 , pp. 433 - 444
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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