Gibbon and Elephant as Seed Dispersers

Abstract

Photographs by Kulpat Saralamba In the forests of Khao Yai National Park, Thailand, gibbons (Hylobates lar) were the most effective seed disperser of the large-fruited Garcinia benthamii. The fruits were at the upper size limit of what the gibbons could process, however, and we found evidence that suggests these large fruits might be more efficiently dispersed by elephants, which were rare at our study site. Our study shows that primates can function as complementary or back-up seed dispersers for some large-fruited species, but they might not be capable of replacing large dispersers, leading to potential changes in landscape-scale dispersal where these animals are absent. One of the main seed dispersers of the large-fruited Garcinia benthamii in Khao Yai National Park, Thailand, the white-handed gibbon (Hylobates lar). Another potential seed disperser, the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus). These photographs illustrate the article “Effectiveness of primate seed dispersers for an “over-sized” fruit Garcinia benthamii,” by Kim R. McConkey, Warren Y. Brockelman, Chanpen Saralamba, and Anuttara Nathalang, published in Ecology 96(10):2737–2747, October 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/14-1931.1