标题：Germination of Cecropia pachystachya (Urticaceae) Dispersed by Artibeus lituratus (Olfers, 1818) and Artibeus planirostris (Spix, 1823; Chiroptera, Phyllostomidae), Campo Grande, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil
摘要：Neotropical fruit bats are important dispersers of endozoochorous seeds, and the passage of seeds through their guts can affect germination. We asked whether the passage of Cecropia pachystachya (Urticaceae) seeds through guts of bats influences their germination behavior, specifically the proportion of germinated seeds and onset and speed of germination. We collected seed sets from bat feces and directly from ripe fruits monthly for a total of 6 months, in the urban area of Campo Grande , Central Brazil . Seeds were stored in glycerol until the germination experiment. During the experiment, for 45 days we maintained seed sets in a germinator and recorded daily seed development. Through redundancy correlation analysis, the interaction between seed source (fruits or bat feces) and time of storage explained 78% of variation in the germination parameters—the onset and speed of germination and the percentage of germinated seeds. Through data generated from random resamples, seed sets defecated by bats presented slower germination speed than seeds from ripe fruits, but onset of germination and proportion of germinated seeds did not differ between seeds passed or not passed through Artibeus lituratus and Artibeus planirostris . Overall, our results support that fruit bats are safe dispersers of C. pachystachya and promote asynchrony of germination among seeds, which may favor parental fitness in less predictable environments.
关键词：bats ; endozoochory ; germination asynchrony ; pioneer trees ; seed bank
