Long-term monitoring of seed dispersal by Asian elephants in a Sundaland rainforest

Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) have inhabited almost all forests in tropical Asia until recently, yet little is known about their role in ecological processes, particularly in the Sundaic forests of Southeast Asia. These forests are peculiar in their phenology, with supra-annual and highly irregular episodes of mast fruiting. Here we present a long-term (six-year) monitoring of the seeds dispersed by elephants in dipterocarp forests of northern Peninsular Malaysia. We conducted monthly dung surveys at two mineral licks (11.3 km apart) frequently visited by elephants. Additionally, we recorded haphazard observations of seeds and seedlings in elephant dung at other locations. We recorded a minimum of 48 morphospecies from at least 25 plant families dispersed by elephants. Elephant seed dispersal was very heterogenous in space, with only 30.3 % of the morphospecies dispersed at both sites (Jaccard dissimilarity index = 0.48). Temporally, elephants dispersed seeds in sporadic pulses of a...