Seed germination after passing through gastrointestinal tract of bats (chiroptera, phyllostomidae)

Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate seed germination of Piper, Solanum, Cecropia and Ficus species after their passage through the gastrointestinal tract of frugivorous bats - Artibeus lituratus, Platyrrhinus lineatus, Carollia perspicillata and Sturnira lilium. Both bats and fruits/fruit cluster samples were obtained in the Parque Estadual Mata do Godoy, Londrina, Brazil. For each plant species, we considered the control and four treatments, made up by the seeds obtained from the feces of each species of bat: (1) A. lituratus, (2) P. lineatus, (3) C. perspilata and (4) S. lilium. Two hundred seeds were used for each treatment and were germinated at the same time, randomly distributed in four containers. The germination data were used to calculate the rate and the average germination time. In only two species, pachystachya Cecropia and Ficus eximia, the passage through the gastrointestinal tract of animals produced no significant change. While the remaining six species had significant differences in the rates and / or average time of seed germination after passage through the gastrointestinal tract of at least one species of bats. Moreover, food preference of bat species for one plant species did not significantly change seed germination in relation to other plants. We conclude that over the evolutionary process, diffuse coevolution did not favor the alteration of germination patterns by the food preference of bats. However, bats do appear to alter the rate and time of seed germination in plants, helping their establishment, besides being good dispersers even of plants whose germination is not affected. The conclusion is that over evolutionary process, diffuse co-evolution did not favor changing germination standards for food preference of bats. However, it was observed that bats modify the rate and germination time of plants assisting its establishment, besides being good dispersers, even of the species where germination has not been changed.