Abstract:
Even when large potential dispersal agents are missing from the habitats
containing guanacaste trees (Enterolobium cyclocarpum), there is no
accumulation of the seeds below the parent tree over the years. By placing
fruits containing known numbers of seeds below a parent guanacaste
tree in Santa Rosa National Park, Costa Rica, and monitoring their
disappearance, it was determined that 93.34 percent of the seeds were
removed by a small forest-floor rodent, Liomys salvini. Another 9.6
percent of the seeds were lost by germination and unknown causes of
death. This leaves only 2 percent of the seed crop to accumulate below
the parent, and this number of seeds can easily be lost during the following
months through germination and L. salvini seed predation.
There is no mystery as to why the hard dormant seeds of guanacaste
trees do not accumulate below seed-bearing parents in forest occupied
by L. salvini.
