DOI: 10.5061/dryad.68gm7
title: Data from: Diverse guilds provide complementary dispersal services in a woodland expansion process after land abandonment

description: 1. Land abandonment due to increasing depopulation of rural areas is an
 ongoing trend in developed countries worldwide. Abandoned lands represent
 an opportunity for ecosystem recovery, an urgent need for biodiversity
 conservation. Seed dispersal services provided by animals are a key
 feature for this process. Different dispersers may differentially
 contribute to plant recruitment under different ecological conditions,
 leading to complementary dispersal services. 2. We studied the dispersal
 services, quantified as the contribution to plant recruitment, provided by
 the main dispersal guilds of Spanish juniper Juniperus thurifera L.:
 small-to-medium sized strongly frugivorous birds (thrushes) and
 medium-to-large sized carnivorous mammals (red fox and stone marten). To
 do this, we studied seed fate from seed dispersal to seedling survival
 during two years and estimated seed dispersal effectiveness (seedlings
 recruited per m2) in two ecological contexts derived from ecosystem
 recovery after a historical period of degradation: remnant woodlands and
 old fields. 3. Results showed a clear shift in the contribution to plant
 recruitment between these guilds, resulting in complementary and
 non-redundant dispersal services. Thrushes were the main contributors to
 plant recruitment in woodlands (73%), leading to population growth but
 with a reduced impact on the colonization of old fields where carnivores
 contributed to 80% of recruitment (42% red fox, 38% stone marten). The
 dispersal complementarity observed for thrushes and carnivores is a
 consequence of their functional diversity, mainly driven by their
 differences in feeding and movement behaviour. 4. Synthesis and
 applications. The combination of short distance, strongly frugivorous
 dispersers (e.g. passerine birds) together with big generalist frugivores
 with long distance movements (e.g. carnivorous mammals) maintained (i)
 effective seed dispersal services in remnant woodlands and (ii) the
 connectivity between patches promoting old fields colonization and
 woodland expansion. Thus, it is in heterogeneous landscape mosaics
 ecosystems (e.g. agro-environments) where functionally diverse disperser
 communities play a key role in ecosystem recovery. By performing effective
 dispersal services across an array of habitat types, functionally diverse
 disperser communities assist natural restoration of human-impacted
 ecosystems all over the world. Thus, dispersal communities provide an
 important ecosystem service that may replace costly human-mediated
 restoration projects.
description: Seed dispersal
 effectiveness stages for sites: Maranchón and Torremocha and habitats:
 woodland and old fieldsData on seed dispersal,
 post-dispersal predation, seedling emergence and survival in Maranchon
 site woodland habitat; Maranchón site old fields habitat and Torremocha
 site woodland habitat, Torremocha site old fields habitat. These data were
 used to estimate seed dispersal effectiveness for each disperser. Seed
 dispersal is equal to the Quantity component. (QNT) Seedling survival is
 equal to Seed Dispersal Effectiveness (SDE) and the Quality component
 (QLT) is obtained by simplicity (SDE/QNT=QLT). SDE landscape graphs were
 plotted using the mean and SE calculated on these data (Figs. 2 and 3).
 Additional file on microhabitat cover was used to estimate overall SDE
 weighting the contribution of each disperser in each microhabitat by the
 relative cover of the corresponding microhabitat in each habitat
 type.EscribanoAvila.etal.2014.JAE_data.zip