Lemur survival key to stopping forest demise

• Autores: Fred Pearce
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 3069, 2016, pág. 12
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Sarah Federman of Yale University and her colleagues have linked lemur extinctions to the precarious future of the Madagascar's large-seeded plants. They found that the disappearance of 17 species of fruit-eating lemurs in the past few centuries has reduced the ability of lemurs to disperse seeds by up to a third. This means many of the island's plants have lost their primary means of propagation. The team discovered this by looking at the teeth and jaws of the extinct lemurs, to work out their diet. The giant lemurs ate large fruit with large seeds, which they then excreted widely across the island. With the big lemurs gone, some plants are in real trouble because their seeds are too big for other animals to eat