Importance of common palm civets (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus) as a long-distance disperser for large-seeded plants in degraded forests

Abstract

Information on the dispersal distance achieved by disturbance-tolerant frugivores is critical for predicting the possibility of plant population persistence and the speed of vegetation recovery in degraded forests. We estimated the dispersal kernel of one large-seeded plant with ‘primate fruits’ rambutans (Nephelium lappaceum), generated by common palm civets (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus) in the degraded forest in the Tabin Wildlife Reserve, Sabah, Malaysia. We predicted that for the dispersal distance, civets are superior to macaques, which are another potential disperser for large-seeded ‘primates fruit’ in degraded forests. Observations on feeding trials showed that the civets often swallowed seeds, but both the macaques never did. Thus the mean seed retention times of the civets, 2.6 h, were much longer than those of macaques: 75 seconds for the long-tailed macaques and 156 seconds for the pig-tailed macaques. Radio tracking the activity of the common palm civets (4 males and 3 females) demonstrated that they traveled several hundreds of meters during gut passage time. The estimated mean dispersal distance was 216 m. Male dispersed the seeds in significantly longer distance (270 m) than female (156 m), reflecting the difference in home range size between sexes. These results indicated that common palm civets play an important role in the dispersal of large-seeded plants as long-distance dispersers, probably surpassing macaques.