Seed fates of four rainforest tree species in the fragmented forests of Anamalais in the southern Western Ghats, India

Seed predation is a key ecosystem process governing the plant population and community structure in forests. Forest fragmentation and habitat loss have been shown to affect seed predation, leading to altered tree recruitment. However, the effects of fragmentation and habitat loss on seed predation are highly variable and context-specific, with limited information from South Asia. For four rainforest tree species in a production landscape of tea and coffee, we examined the influence of forest type (benchmark, N = 3, and fragmented, N = 5, forests) and seed size on the proportion of seeds, 1) predated by vertebrate seed predators, 2) predated by invertebrate seed predators, and 3) removed by vertebrate seed predators. The seed fates were tracked by placing the seeds in four 1 × 1 m plots under the canopy of the tree (N ≥ 11 individuals per tree species and 48 trees overall), and camera traps were placed under a subset of trees (N = 29, trap nights = 712). Overall, we recorded nine species...