Small-sized fish as possible seed dispersers: disclosing novel fish and plant species interactions in the Pantanal wetland

ABSTRACT

Seed dispersion is a critical process to vegetation dynamics which is particularly complex in mosaic-like landscapes as the Pantanal wetlands. We analyzed some aspects of ichthyochory in the Pantanal flooded grasslands. The fish were collected and had their whole intestinal contents removed and submitted to suitable germination conditions for 179 days. We collected 661 specimens belonging to 40 species. Feces from Astyanax lacustris, Poptela paraguayensis, Moenkhausia sanctafilomena and Moenkhausia bonita produced 15 seedlings of herbaceous plant of the species Ludwigia inclinata, Ludwigia leptocarpa and a non-identified monocotyledon. A total of 30.4 g of fecal mass was recovered with a rate of 0.49 seedling.gram⁻¹. There is a positive relation between the number of seedlings obtained and the amount of fish fecal mass (g). Currently, Pantanal landscape dynamics is under rising pressure of field compartmentalization due to man-made roads which restrains fish transit.

KEYWORDS:

• Ichthyochory
• flooded grassland
• herbaceous macrophytes
• dispersal
• Onagraceae

Acknowledgments

We are thankful for the support received from Dr. Hugmar Paim with the fish identification and to Enesio Francisco Leoncio, Scarlet Alice Carvalho Fauth for their assistance during the field samplings (License number SISBIO 58226) and Dr. Lucia Mateus for her assistance with field materials. We are grateful for the support and helpful comments of Dr. Christina W. Castelo Branco, Dr. Betina Kozlowsky-Suzuki and Dr. Elisângela Medeiros de Almeida during the writing of this work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. This work has not been published elsewhere (except as an abstract), it is not under consideration for publication anywhere else. Its publication has been approved by the authors and if accepted it will not be published in the same form at any other place.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the resources of LTER – Long Term Ecological Research site 12 developed under the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) scientific program.