Phenological gap in fruiting period and dispersal of seeds from alien fleshy-fruited plants by medium-sized carnivores in temperate forests of Central Europe

Abstract

Some biological differences between native and alien plants are relevant to their dispersal mechanisms. One of them is the fruiting period: it is shifted in time, peaking later than in natives. Here we report the case study showing the temporal distance in fruiting phenology between native and alien plants and their seed dispersal via carnivorous mammals. From 2009 to 2011, scats of badgers Meles meles, foxes Vulpes vulpes, martens Martes spp. (M. martes and M. foina) and possibly also raccoon dogs Nyctereutes procyonoides (N = 820) were collected along transects totaling 30.4 km in length each month from June to November. We analyzed the frequency of occurrence of seeds (FO%) and the seed load in sampled scats; 61.7% of the sampled feces contained seeds of 18 fleshy-fruited native and alien plant taxa, and the most abundant seeds were from species with multi-seeded fruits such as Vaccinium myrtillus (94.6%), Rubus sp. (2.0%), and drupes of Prunus serotina (1.0%). The structure of dominance was characterized by seeds of Vaccinium myrtillus (15.0%), Pyrus sp. (14.8%) and Prunus serotina (13.0%) with aliens reaching high frequency of occurrence (FO%). The shares of seed FO% in the samples differed between alien and native plants. For seed load there were also significant interactions between the status of the seeds (alien or native) and the month of the vegetation period. Our data show the coincidence of two factors – the late fruiting period of alien plants and the decreasing availability of native fruits during the vegetation period. Such a set of factors may promote the dispersal of alien plant seeds by carnivorous mammals, which, unlike migrating birds, are constantly present in autumn. The limited availability of native fruits after their fruiting period, creating a phenological gap, makes alien plants the main source of fleshy-fruits at the end of vegetation period in forest ecosystems; this is expressed in high proportion of alien plants in seed FO%, and in significant interactions in the seed load in carnivore scats.