Precipitation Drives Frugivory in a Subtropical Generalist Herbivore, the Gopher Tortoise, and Alters Its Functional Role as a Seed Disperser.

ABSTRACT: Consumers employ a variety of foraging strategies, and oftentimes the foraging strategy employed is related to resource availability. As consumers acquire resources, they may interact with their resource base in mutualistic or antagonistic ways-falling along a mutualism-antagonism continuum-with implications for ecological processes such as seed dispersal. However, patterns of resource use vary temporally, and textbook herbivores may switch foraging tactics to become more frugivorous in periods of greater fleshy fruit availability. In this study, we investigated how fleshy fruit consumption of a generalist herbivore-the gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus)-shifts intra-annually following seasonal precipitation and subsequently examined how this shift toward increased frugivory infl

SUBMITTER: Figueroa A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11573422 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature