DOI: 10.5061/dryad.sxksn034m
title: Data from: The effects of human-altered habitat spatial pattern on frugivory and seed dispersal: a global meta-analysis

description: Seed dispersal by frugivorous animals is important for plant mobility,
 regeneration, and persistence. Human-caused landscape change is thought to
 disrupt seed dispersal, but evidence is scarce. We performed a
 comprehensive meta-analysis on the effects of habitat spatial pattern on
 frugivory and seed dispersal. We found 233 effects from 71 studies. At a
 patch or local scale, altered habitat spatial pattern was measured as
 declining patch size, increasing patch isolation, or habitat edge (vs.
 interior). At a landscape scale it was measured as declining amount of
 habitat, increasing mean patch isolation, increasing number of patches, or
 increasing habitat edge in the landscape. We found overall negative
 effects of altered habitat spatial pattern on: (i) the quantity of
 frugivory or seed dispersal, (ii) the number of species involved in a
 plant-frugivore interaction, and (iii) seed dispersal distance. Moderator
 variable analysis was only possible for the first of these. It revealed
 negative responses of the quantity of frugivory or seed dispersal to
 habitat loss at both the local scale (declining patch size), and the
 landscape scale (declining habitat amount), but little evidence for a
 response to habitat edge at either scale. In addition, altered habitat
 spatial pattern reduced the quantity of frugivory or seed dispersal more
 strongly in temperate than tropical areas. Finally, the few-recorded
 effects of landscape-scale fragmentation per se (increasing patch density
 or edge density) on the quantity of frugivory or seed dispersal were mixed
 and weak. Our meta-analysis reinforces the notion that habitat loss is a
 major threat to frugivory and seed dispersal by animals, and reveals an
 insufficiency of studies of the effects of habitat fragmentation per se.
 Thus, based on the current literature, we conclude that maintaining and
 increasing habitat amount is vital for maintaining seed dispersal by
 frugivorous animals.
description: We conducted a review of the scientific literature following the
 Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses
 (PRISMA) protocol (Moher et al., 2009). We included all records found
 through May 2020. We used the following sequence of search terms in the
 Web of Science search engine: "habitat fragm*”OR edge or isolation or
 connectivity OR “number of patches” OR “patch size” OR “forest cover” OR
 “forest loss” OR “deforestation” OR “habitat loss” AND "seed dispers*
 OR “seed removal” OR frugivor* OR “dispersal distance” OR “seed
 rain”. The initial search resulted in 2141 published
 articles that were further screened to include only English-language
 studies that (i) evaluated the effects of habitat
 spatial pattern on any measure of frugivory or seed dispersal of zoochoric
 species; and (ii) provided sample sizes and quantitative
 measures of frugivory or seed dispersal, i.e. mean estimates and error
 measures for studies comparing treatments vs. controls, or correlation
 coefficients for gradient studies. After title and abstract evaluation, we
 excluded articles that did not meet these inclusion criteria, which left
 99 articles. We completely read the methodologies of these 99 papers and
 excluded 28 that did not present complete information or did not evaluate
 the effects of habitat spatial pattern on frugivory or seed dispersal of
 zoochoric species. We ended up with 71 studies that measured the effects
 of habitat spatial pattern on frugivory or seed dispersal measure on
 different ways.
description: README.xlxs contains the following datasheets:
 Cazetta&Fahrig_Dryad.csv: contains the information used
 to perform the meta-analysis. The information included:
 -Location: temperate or tropical -Habitat:
 forest, savanna, desert, semi-natural habitats
 -Response level: community or species -
 Spatial pattern: habitat amount, patch size, habitat edge, isolation,
 number of patches, edge density -Scale: patch or
 landscape -Yi= effect size -Vi =
 corresponding sampling variance References.xlxs:
 contains a list of the 71 published articles included in the meta-analyis,
 as supporting information.