Megaerops ecuadatus (Photo by Merlin Tuttle). Spreading seeds to grassland patches in Thailand
The case is often made that bats complement birds as seed dispersers in reforestation projects because they tend to defecate in flight, or drop larger seeds that they are carrying. This paradigm has come largely from work in the Neotropics, where the role of fruit bats as dispersers of seeds to abandoned pastures is well described. Much less is known from the Old World tropics, but a new paper from Tuanjit Sritongchuay and colleagues finds that fruit bats, primarily Cynopterus sphinx and Megaerops ecaudatus are similarly the primary seed dispersal agent in grassland patches in Thailand. Seed rain under bushes and shrubs in recovering habitat was primarily from birds, but birds played almost no role in the regeneration of open grassy habitats. The paper was published in Tropical Conservation Science and can be downloaded here
Sritongchuay, T., Gale, G. A. Stewart, A., Kerdkaew, T. and Bumrungsri, S. 2014. Seed Rain in Abandoned
Clearings in a Lowland Evergreen Rain Forest in Southern Thailand. Tropical Conservation Science Vol.7 (3):572-585.
Available online: www.tropicalconservationscience.org
