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<span style="margin:0px;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont"><span style="margin: 0px; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Additional information from the author of an article that I shared earlier today.
My apologies for not consolidating. </span></span></div>
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<span style="margin: 0px; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Question: </span></div>
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<i><span style="margin: 0px; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); display: inline !important; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif;">am curious whether you determined whether/which
of the consumed plant species were still viable upon 'deposition' and which of these species may also depend on scarification to germinate? </span></i><span style="margin:0px"></span></div>
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<span style="margin: 0px; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Adrian Figueroa responded:
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<span class="x_x_gmail_default" style="margin:0px;font-size:15px;font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont;color:rgb(32, 31, 30);background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255)"><span style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I<i> </i></span></span><span class="x_x_gmail_default" style="margin: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(32, 31, 30); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><i>did
not attempt to germinate seeds consumed by the tortoises in my undergrad study because we had frozen the scats, which likely killed the seed embryo. </i></span>
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<i><span style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, now that I'm back at Zoo Miami and preparing for my own graduate research, my plan is to perform germination trials on ingested vs. uningested seeds as well as testoing for the influence
of fire stimuli on seed germination (since this plant community is fire-reliant, requiring burns ever 3-5 years). My idea is to perform a two factor crossed design where I examine</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>(1)</b></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the
effect of ingestion by gopher tortoises vs. depulped seeds that aren't ingested and</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>(2)</b></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif;">mimicking
the effect of fire by irrigating seeds with tap water vs. smoke-infused water to see if there are any synergistic effects of ingestion and then exposure to smoke-treated water. I chose to use smoke-treated water because some studies have shown that it's a
stronger catalyst for seed germination for fire-dependent plant species than exposing the seeds to heat shock.</span></i></div>
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<i><br>
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<i><span class="x_x_gmail_default" style="margin: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(32, 31, 30); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">On another note, I was able to dissect fresh scat samples that a wild gopher
tortoise provided me with while I was putting a new radio transmitter on her. By the time I finished dissecting the scat, she had pooped out 348 seeds of locustberry (</span><span class="x_x_gmail_default" style="margin: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(32, 31, 30); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Byrsonima
lucida</span><span class="x_x_gmail_default" style="margin: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(32, 31, 30); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">)! That plant is the host for the Florida duskywing butterfly (</span><span class="x_x_gmail_default" style="margin: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(32, 31, 30); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Ephyriades
brunneus floridensis</span><span class="x_x_gmail_default" style="margin: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(32, 31, 30); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">) which is an imperiled species in Florida. I have since
planted the seeds in different substrates to see which would work best for feeding/germination trials in my official dissertation research.</span></i></div>
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<div id="divRplyFwdMsg" dir="ltr"><font face="Calibri, sans-serif" color="#000000" style="font-size:11pt"><b>From:</b> Park, Margaret E<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Friday, July 2, 2021 1:55 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> PCA Listserve <native-plants@lists.plantconservation.org>; apwg@lists.plantconservation.org <apwg@lists.plantconservation.org><br>
<b>Subject:</b> ARTICLE: Seed Consumption by Gopher Tortoises (Gopherus polyphemus) in the Globally Imperiled Pine Rockland Ecosystem of Southern Florida, USA
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<span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif; font-size:11pt; color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif; font-size:11pt; color:rgb(0,0,0)">Adrian Figueroa, James Lange, Stephen M. Whitfield, Chelonian Conservation and Biology, May
24, 2021</span><b style="font-size:11pt; font-style:inherit; font-variant-ligatures:inherit; font-variant-caps:inherit"> </b></p>
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Abstract</p>
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Turtles have been identified as key dispersers of seeds in many ecosystems; however, seed dispersal by turtles (chelonochory) has received far less attention than seed dispersal by birds or mammals. We assessed the role of gopher tortoises (Gopherus polyphemus)—a
keystone species—as potential seed dispersers by analyzing the seed composition of their diet in a globally imperiled ecosystem: the pine rockland ecosystem of South Florida. The pine rocklands contain high numbers of both endemic and invasive plant species
that may be dispersed by tortoises. We collected scat samples from wild gopher tortoises living in the pine rockland habitats in the Richmond Tract (Miami-Dade County, Florida, USA) and examined the samples to identify seeds consumed. We extracted 2484 seeds
from 53 samples from at least 10 individual tortoises. Of the 2484 individual seeds, we distinguished 33 morphospecies and identified 23 to the species taxonomic level. The 14 most abundant seed species in the scat constituted > 90% of all seeds eaten by the
tortoises. Three of the 14 most abundant seeds were from nonnative plants, but none were among the most disruptive invasive species. Tortoises consumed mostly herbaceous ground cover and fibrous grasses. Given that the tortoises were consuming several ground
cover plants and contained a high density of those seeds in their scats, they seemed to be consuming the seeds as bycatch rather than selectively feeding on them, therefore supporting Janzen's “foliage is the fruit” hypothesis. The prevalence of many seeds
and a variety of seed species in the tortoise scat suggests that gopher tortoises may be serving the ecological role of a seed dispersal agent for some of the plants they consume within the pine rocklands.</p>
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Link to article: https://meridian.allenpress.com/ccb/article-abstract/20/1/27/465473/Seed-Consumption-by-Gopher-Tortoises-Gopherus </p>
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