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Subsidient: Laura Boeschoten/Utrecht University
Subsidie: S171.66

Hunting in tropical forests has increased substantially over the last 20-30 years. With losing fauna, their role in the ecosystem as for example seed dispersers is lost as well. To determine which animals disperse which seeds, a database was set up including > 5000 fruit-frugivore interactions in French Guiana. With this database it was studied whether relationships could be found between frugivores and the fruits they consume. It was found that small fruits are consumed by a higher number of animals and therefore they are less dependent on one frugivore. Additionally it was found that larger animals on average consume larger fruits. However, there is also redundancy in diets: some small animals also consume large fruits. Therefore it is also important to take the quality of dispersal into account.

To study what happens in situ, fieldwork was conducted in French Guiana. Using camera traps it was studied which animals actually eat and take certain fruits. Additionally, transects were established in which all seedlings were measured, to study clustering. This data will be analyzed further within the PhD research of R W Vaessen, to study whether the findings from the database can be related to findings in the field.