Seed Dispersal Among Three Different Vegetation Communities in the Huasteca Region, Mexico, Analyzed from Bat Feces

Abstract

Seed dispersal is a key process for plant colonization and for the establishment of many plant populations in tropical environments. A large proportion of all tropical woody plants with fruits and seeds depend on frugivorous vertebrates for their dispersal, and frugivorous bats are essential for the dispersal of seeds from many tropical plants. Many of these plants are important for vegetative regeneration after disturbances. Our main goal was to document the process of seed dispersal through feces-seed analysis by the bat community among semi-deciduous, evergreen, and secondary forests in the ‘Huasteca’ region of San Luis Potosí, Mexico. We hypothesized that bats would disperse seeds among all three forest types, and thus predicted that we would find seeds from both early and late successional stages in bat feces in all three forest types. In each of three replicate sites representative of each of these forest types, we trapped bats with mist-nets and collected their feces with seeds. A total of 558 individuals from eight frugivorous bat species were captured. The most abundant species were Sturnira ludovici, Glossophaga soricina and Artibeus jamaicensis. We documented seeds in bat feces from 16 plant species belonging to four families: Moraceae, Piperaceae, Solanaceae, and Myrtaceae; 43% were pioneer species, and thus important for the initial stages of regeneration, and 37% were species of late successional stages. Seeds in bat feces were found in similar proportions in all forest types, thus contributing to the regeneration of highly deforested habitats in the Huasteca region. To maintain the entire mutualistic network between bats and plant species, diverse bat communities are important.