page_title: Chamaerops
section_title: Ecology and interactions with animals
hierarchical_section_title: Chamaerops / Ecology and interactions with animals
caption_attribution_description: English: Young Eurasian badger (Meles meles)Español: Tejón europeo jovenFrançais&#160;: Jeune blaireau européenPortuguês: Texugo-europeu
context_page_description: Chamaerops is a genus of flowering plants in the family Arecaceae. The only currently fully accepted species is Chamaerops humilis, variously called European fan palm or the Mediterranean dwarf palm. It is one of the most cold-hardy palms and is used in landscaping in temperate climates.
context_section_description: Chamaerops humilis flowers in spring, typically from April to May. The plant also may be partly anemophilous, that is to say, wind-pollinated, but it is at least partly entomophilous, that is to say dependent on pollination by insects. Only one insect species is known to pollinate it, namely a specific weevil, Derelomus chamaeropsis in the family Curculionidae.  The nature of the relationship with the weevil is a version of nursery pollination mutualism with the weevil; the form this takes is that once pollinating weevils have found a satisfactory plant, whether male or female, they usually stay on the same plant until the end of its anthesis, finding shelter, egg-laying sites, and food in the inflorescences.
  At anthesis, as is common in angiosperms, both male and female Chamaerops humilis plants attract their pollinators with chemical compounds, but an unusual feature is that their scents are released by the leaves, and not by the flowers. Towards the end of anthesis, weevils leave the plant and seek a new host plant, again either male or female.
  Larval development of the weevil Derelomus chamaeropsis occurs within rachises of inflorescences of male plants during autumn and winter. At the beginning of the next flowering period, adult weevils emerge from the dry and brittle stems of old inflorescences of the previous year of male plants only. Those that hatch in female plants die without concluding their development. This is because the palmettos are adapted to prevent the pollinating weevils from destroying the female inflorescences with their burden of seed. Weevils have been shown to lay eggs within female inflorescences, but as soon as seeds start to develop, eggs or larvae fail to continue their life cycle. On the other hand, male inflorescences have completed their function after pollination, so it is advantageous to the plant's reproduction for the weevils to complete their life cycles and shelter in the male inflorescences, thereby remaining available for pollination when they emerge in the following season.
  The ripe pulp of C. humilis has several important functions. 
  When ripened, the pulp smells strongly of rancid butter and thus acts as a foraging cue for nocturnal frugivores that commonly are fundamentally carnivorous mammals such as badgers and foxes.
  The pulp inhibits germination, ensuring that the seed does not germinate until has been dispersed.
  The pulp also acts as a chemical or physical barrier against invertebrate seed predators, typically beetles, and in particular weevils.
  Because of the combination of such functions in the pulp, the palm both benefits and suffers adverse consequences when carnivores feed on the fruit and thereby remove the pulp. On the one hand, the seeds that carnivores swallow, germinate more frequently than seeds in entire fruit. On the other hand, ingested seeds are more frequently destroyed by invertebrate pests than non-ingested seeds. However, because of the mobility of carnivores, their dispersal service is important to the palmetto, given the severe fragmentation and isolation of most populations across the increasingly densely populated Mediterranean basin.
caption: In southern Spain, the Eurasian badger Meles meles is the main seed disperser of C. humilis[15]
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