Primate frugivory in two species-rich neotropical forests: implications for the demography of large-seeded plants inoverhunted areas

摘要

Successful seedling recruitment in higher plants involves a sequence of nested regeneration stages, including the production and pollination of flowers, fruit development, dispersal and germination of viable seeds, seedling emergence, and growth to reproductive maturity. A disruption in any of these processes or a reduction in the transition probability between consecutive stages could result in a seedling recruitment bottleneck. However, the transition from viable seeds to seedlings is perhaps themost crucial to the population dynamics of most plant species (Harper, 1977), a maxim that has been confirmed yet again in a long-term study of seedling recruitment of 53 species of Panamanian trees (Harms et al, 2000).