Fruit-eating animals often play important roles as seed dispersal agents in many ecosystems, particularly in tropical regions. Yet, the extent to which seed dispersal by omnivorous nocturnal animals may facilitate the germination and recruitment of plant communities is poorly investigated. Characterizing their roles in seed dispersal could provide a more complete picture of how animal-mediated seed dispersal ecology influences tropical forest ecosystems functioning. Here, we investigated the roles and impacts of two species of omnivorous nocturnal lemur species (Microcebus rufus and M. jollyae) dispersal service in Madagascar’s southeastern rainforests. We collected data on dispersal events by sampling seeds from fecal materials of live-trapped individuals, and conducted germination trials with defecated seeds compared to manually extracted seeds from fresh fruits (control).
Results/Conclusions
Data show that the two species can have significant contributions as seed dispersers as they defecated a large proportion of seeds from 23 plant species from various forest strata, and 83.33% of the defecated plant species germinated and produced viable seedlings. In addition, defecated seeds germinated faster than control seeds with a significantly high germination rate and seedling length. Although the two lemur species dispersed both native and non-native plant species, non-native species represent only a small proportion (17.19%) of the defecated seeds. These results suggest that omnivorous animals can acts as important seed dispersers, which may have critical implications for forest regeneration and diversity maintenance. These findings add also to the limited information on the ecological contribution of omnivorous nocturnal animals in the functioning of tropical rainforests. Finally, this work could provide important insights to promote mouse lemurs conservation as well as taxa associated with them.