Abstract
Although fleshy fruits function primarily to attract seed dispersers, many animal‐dispersed fruits contain potentially toxic secondary metabolites. These metabolites can provide defense against seed predators and pathogens, but their effects on dispersers are still poorly understood. In some cases plants may experience a tradeoff, where the metabolites that provide fruit defense also reduce seed disperser preferences. In other cases the bioactivity of fruit secondary metabolites may be directed primarily at pests with no negative effects on seed‐dispersing vertebrates. We tested the effects of amides, a group of nitrogen‐based defensive compounds common in the plant genus Piper (Piperaceae), in interactions with the primary seed dispersers of Piper in the neotropics – fruit‐feeding bats in the genus Carollia (Phyllostomidae). In a series of flight cage experiments, pure amides and amide‐rich fruit extracts reduced the preferences of bats for Piper fruit, affecting both the bats’ initial choices to remove Piper infructescences and the proportion of fruit consumed from individual infructescences once they were removed. However, the effects of amides varied considerably among three species of Carollia and among the specific individual amides and extracts tested. Overall, our results support the hypothesis that plants experience a tradeoff between seed dispersal and fruit defense, but the strength of this tradeoff and the overall fitness consequences may depend strongly on ecological context.
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The text the model read, with the source record’s inline markup (italics, sub- and superscripts) rendered and its character entities decoded; quote offsets refer to the raw text.
Claims 7
Claim · model-written summary
Pure amides reduced bat preference for Piper fruit in flight cages.
- Treatment
- pure amidese0
- Interactor
- batsChiropterae0pollinator
- Outcome
- preferences of bats for Piper fruite0
- Direction
- reducede0
.jpg?width=60){kind=small}
PiperNot reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
.jpg?width=500)
Verbatim
e0“pure amides and amide‐rich fruit extracts reduced the preferences of bats for Piper fruit”
Claim · model-written summary
Amide rich fruit extracts reduced bat preference for Piper fruit in flight cages.
- Treatment
- amide‐rich fruit extractse0
- Interactor
- batsChiropterae0herbivore
- Outcome
- preferences of bats for Piper fruite0
- Direction
- reducede0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“pure amides and amide‐rich fruit extracts reduced the preferences of bats for Piper fruit”
Claim · model-written summary
Amides reduced bats’ initial choices to remove Piper infructescences.
- Treatment
- amidese0
- Interactor
- batsChiropterae0herbivore
- Outcome
- bats’ initial choices to remove Piper infructescencese0
- Direction
- reducede0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“amides and amide‐rich fruit extracts reduced the preferences of bats for Piper fruit, affecting both the bats’ initial choices to remove Piper infructescences”
Claim · model-written summary
Amides reduced the fraction of Piper fruit bats consumed after removing infructescences.
- Treatment
- amidese0
- Interactor
- batsChiropterae0herbivore
- Outcome
- proportion of fruit consumede0
- Direction
- reducede0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“amides and amide‐rich fruit extracts reduced the preferences of bats for Piper fruit, affecting both the bats’ initial choices to remove Piper infructescences and the proportion of fruit consumed from individual infructescences once they were removed”
Claim · model-written summary
Amide effects varied among three Carollia species.
CarolliaOrganisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“the effects of amides varied considerably among three species of Carollia”
Claim · model-written summary
Amide effects varied among individual amides and tested extracts.
- Outcome
- effects of amides varied considerablye0
- Qualifier
- specific individual amides and extracts testede0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“the effects of amides varied considerably among three species of Carollia and among the specific individual amides and extracts tested”
Claim · model-written summary
Authors interpret the results as supporting a tradeoff between Piper fruit defense and seed dispersal.
- Organ / stage
- fruite0
- Outcome
- tradeoff between seed dispersal and fruit defensee1
- Qualifier
- support the hypothesise1
Not reportedDirection
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Piper fruit”
e1“our results support the hypothesis that plants experience a tradeoff between seed dispersal and fruit defense”