plant-animal interactions

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Seed Dispersal by Way of Tree Climbing Goats

Goats are surprisingly good climbers. Given the opportunity, they’ll climb just about anything, including each other. So what’s stopping them from climbing a tree, especially if there is something up there they can eat? And so they do. Tree climbing goats are such a fascinating sight, they even have their own calendar. But the story doesn’t end there. The goats find food in the trees, entertaining humans as they go; meanwhile, the trees have a reliable partner in the goats, who inadvertently help disperse the tree’s seeds.

In general, goats don’t need to climb trees to find food. Goats aren’t known to be picky eaters, and there is usually plenty for them to eat at ground level. However, in arid climates where food can become limited, ascending trees to eat foliage and fruits is a matter of survival. This is the case in southwestern Morocco, where goats can be found in the tops of argan trees every autumn gorging on the fruits of this desert tree.

goats in Argania spinosa via wikimedia commons

Argan (Argania spinosa) is a relatively short tree with a sprawling canopy and thorny branches. It is the only species in its genus and is endemic to parts of Morocco and neighboring Algeria. The tree is economically important to the area due to the oil-rich seeds found within its bitter fruits. Argan oil has a variety of culinary uses and is also used medicinally and in cosmetics. To get to the oil, goats are often employed in harvesting the fruits. The goats retrieve the fruits from the tops of the trees and consume their fleshy outer layer. The hard, seed-containing pits are expelled, collected, and cracked open to get to the seeds.

This is where a team of researchers from Europe come in. There has been some confusion as to how the pits are expelled, with some reports claiming that they pass through the goats digestive track and are deposited in their manure. This is a common way for the seeds of many other plant species to be dispersed, and is carried out not only by goats and other ruminants, but also by a wide variety of mammals, as well as birds and even reptiles. However, considering the average size of the pits (22 mm long x 15 mm wide), the researchers thought this to be unlikely.

fruits of Argania spinosa via wikimedia commons

Others reported that the seeds were spat out in the goats’ cud while they ruminated. Goats, like other ruminants, have stomachs composed of multiple compartments, the first of which being the rumen. Partially digested food, known as cud, is sent back into the mouth from the rumen for further chewing and may be spat out or swallowed again. Goats are known to ruminate in the same location that they defecate, which results in confusion as to when and how certain seeds, like those of the argan tree, are deposited.

By feeding various fruits to a group of goats, the researchers were able to test the hypothesis that seeds could be regurgitated and spat from the cud and that this is a viable method of seed dispersal. The researchers reported that larger seeds were more commonly spat out than smaller seeds, but that “almost any seed could be ejected during, mastication, spat from the cud, digested, or defecated.” The viability of spat out seeds was tested, and over 70% of them were found to be viable.

pits and seeds of Argania spinosa via wikimedia commons

This discovery suggests that seed dispersal via spitting by ruminants could be a common occurrence – possibly far more common than previously considered. The researchers postulate that studies that have only considered seeds dispersed in manure “may have underestimated an important fraction of the total number of dispersed seeds” and that the seeds spat from the cud likely represent different species from those commonly dispersed in dung. In addition, the seeds of some species don’t survive the digestive tract of ruminants, so “spitting from the cud may represent their only, or at least their main, dispersal mechanism.”

This study surrounding the argan trees was followed up by the same group of researchers with a literature review that was published last month. The review looked into all available studies that mentioned seed dispersal via regurgitation by ruminants. While they considered over 1000 papers, only 40 published studies were found to be relevant for the review. From these studies, they determined that the seeds of 48 plant species (representing 21 different families) are dispersed by being spat from a ruminant’s cud, and that most of these plant species are trees and shrubs whose fruits contain large seeds. Also of note is that ruminants across the globe are doing this – representatives from 18 different genera were mentioned in the studies.

ruminating goat via wikimedia commons

The researchers conclude that this is a “neglected” mechanism of seed dispersal. It’s difficult to observe, and in many cases it hasn’t even been considered. Like so many other animals, ruminants can disperse seeds in a variety of ways. Seeds can attach to their fur and be transported wherever they go. They can pass through their digestive track and end up in their dung, potentially far from where they were first consumed. And, as presented here, they can be spat out during rumination. Investigations involving all of these mechanisms and the different plant species involved will allow us to see, in a much clearer way, the role that ruminants play in the dispersal of seeds.

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Bat Pollinated Flowers of a Mexican Columnar Cactus

Pollination syndromes – suites of floral traits used to determine potential pollinators and routes of pollination – have been informative in studying plant-pollinator interactions, but are generally too simplistic to tell the full story. Most flowering plants are generalists when it comes to pollinators, whereas pollination syndromes imply specialization. Not all pollinators are created equal though, and some may be more effective at pollinating particular plants than others. In fact, occasionally pollination syndromes ring true and a predicted plant-pollinator combination turns out to be the most effective and reliable interaction.

According to a study published in American Journal of Botany by Ibarra-Cerdeña, et al., Stenocereus queretaroensis, a species of columnar cactus endemic to western Mexico, adheres to this scenario. Stenocereus is a genus in a group of columnar and tree-like cacti called the Pachycereeae tribe. Cactus in this group are generally bat pollinated; however, their flowers are typically visited by various species of birds and insects as well, and in some cases, bats are not the primary pollinator. In their introduction, the authors note that specialization appears to be more common in tropical latitudes, and chiropterophilic (bat pollinated) columnar cacti that occur in temperate regions can be comparatively more generalized. This is because “extratropical chiropterophilic cacti appear to be faced with unpredictable seasonal year-to-year variation in pollinators,” while “cacti in tropical regions” experience “highly reliable seasonal availability of nectar-feeding bats, thereby leading to a temporally stable pollination system.”

Stenocereus queretaroensis is a massive cactus, reaching up to ten meters tall. Several vertical stems rise from a short, stocky, central trunk. Each stem has up to eight distinctive ribs and averages around 15 centimeters in diameter. Groupings of white to grey spines up to four centimeters long appear along the ribs. Flowers are light-colored, around 10 to 14 centimeters in length, and occur along the upper half of the stems, extended well beyond the spines. Flowers open at night – producing abundant nectar – and close by the afternoon the following day. Floral characteristics led the authors of this study to predict bats to be the main pollinator, and they set up a series of experiments to test this.

Stenocereus queretaroensis - photo credit: wikimedia commons

Stenocereus queretaroensis – photo credit: wikimedia commons

Part of their experiment consisted of five treatments involving 130 flowers on 75 plants. One group of flowers was bagged and allowed to self-pollinate naturally, while another group was bagged and self-pollinated manually. A third group was left exposed during the night but bagged in the morning, while a fourth group was bagged during the night and exposed during the daytime. The final group was left alone. For each of these five treatments, aborted flowers and mature fruits were counted and seed set was determined. Nectar samples were taken from a separate group of flowers at two hour intervals from 8:00 PM to 8:00 AM, after which no nectar was produced. A camera was also used to document floral visits. Visits were deemed “legitimate” when the “visitor’s body came in contact with anthers and/or stigma” and “illegitimate” when “no contact with anthers or stigma” was made.

The researchers found S. queretaroensis to be “incapable of self-pollination,” as no fruit set occurred for the first two treatments. The control group and the nocturnally exposed group had nearly identical results, producing significantly more fruits with greater seed set compared to the nocturnally bagged group. During the day, flowers were visited by four species of birds (two hummingbirds, a woodpecker, and an oriole) and several species of bees (mainly honey bees). During the night, apart from illegitimate visits from a nectar robbing hawkmoth, one species of bat was the dominant floral visitor, and the majority (93.8%) of the visits were legitimate. This bat species was Leptonycteris curasoae, the southern long-nosed bat.

Leptonycteris curasoae - photo credit: wikimedia commons

Leptonycteris curasoae – photo credit: wikimedia commons

The abundance of nectar-feeding bats was monitored in the study area over a four year period, and L. curasoae was by far the most abundant species throughout the study period. Nectar produced in the flowers of S. queretaroensis was at its maximum around midnight, which seemed to correlate with observations of bat visits. Even though daytime visitors appeared to contribute to fruit and seed set, the nocturnal treatment produced significantly more fruit with significantly higher seed set, suggesting that bats are the more efficient pollinator. Insects visiting during the daytime, when nectar was decreasingly available, were most likely robbing pollen.

The authors acknowledge that for most plant species, “a wide array of taxonomically diverse fauna such as insects, birds, and mammals usually serve as potential pollinators,” and that “generalized pollination systems are more frequent than specialized ones.” However, in this case, “a close association between L. curasoae and S. queretaroensis [suggests] that the chiropterophilic syndrome is still a useful model.”

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