Frugivore gut passage increases seed germination: an updated meta-analysis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
ABSTRACT Many plants rely on animal mutualists for reproduction. Quantifying how animal mutualists impact plant performance provides a foundation for modelling how change in animal communities affects the composition and functioning of plant communities. We performed a meta-analysis of 2539 experiments, 6 times more than the last comprehensive meta-analysis, examining how gut passage by frugivores influences seed germination. We simultaneously analyzed multiple predictor variables related to study methodology, location, and frugivore identity to disentangle methodological from ecological impacts on effect sizes. We found that gut passage by birds, fish, reptiles, bats, primates, and other mammals on average increased seed germination, but that the magnitude varied across vertebrate groups. The positive effects of gut passage were largely explained by the de-inhibitory effects of pulp removal rather than by the scarification of seed tissues. Some previous studies and meta-analyses that found no effect of gut passage only tested scarification or did not distinguish between these tests of scarification and pulp removal. We found that, for a typical fleshy-fruited plant species, the lack of gut passage reduces germination by 60%. From an evolutionary perspective, this indicates a large risk associated with reliance on animal mutualists that is balanced against the benefits of animal-mediated seed dispersal. From a conservation perspective, this highlights the potential for large demographic consequences of frugivore declines on plant populations. Our database and findings advance quantitative predictions for the role of fruit-frugivore interactions in shaping plant communities in the Anthropocene.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.013 | 0.024 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.008 | 0.039 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.006 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".