Supersized fruit eater database on climate change frontline

Date:
June 20, 2023
Source:
Michigan State University
Summary:
To conserve precious and fragile biodiversity hotspots, a crucial
step is knowing how the fruit eaters are doing. To assist in that,
scientists and students have supersized a database to keep track
of such animals and birds.


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FULL STORY ==========================================================================
To conserve precious and fragile biodiversity hotspots, a crucial step is knowing how the fruit eaters are doing. To assist in that, scientists and students at Michigan State University (MSU) have supersized a database
to keep track of such animals and birds.

In this month's open-access journal Global Ecology and Biogeography, the
group introduces for the first time a hulking list of more than 45,000
traits for creatures that eat fruit. Frugivoria, named for the species
called frugivores who survive mainly on fruit, supersizes existing
databases by providing researchers and conservationists with one-stop
listings of both critters and birds in the forests of Central and South America. Frugivoria's data and workflow are open and accessible to all
to help facilitate its use for addressing the biodiversity crisis.

In a time of rapid climate change, it's crucial to understand how the
fruit eaters are doing in specific ways.

"With climate change, seed dispersion is really important," said Beth
Gerstner, a PhD candidate in the MSU Department of Fisheries and Wildlife
who led the development. "Fruit eaters maintain forest composition and
health by pooping - - which spreads seeds. Frugivoria is an important contribution because researchers can use this to understand the diversity
of their roles in the ecosystem." Knowing what is doing the fruit
eating and pooping, as well as their distribution and life traits --
their life expectancies, breeding habits, habitat preferences -- is
critical to tracking changes that climate change may bring. Yet current databases were fragmented or incomplete.

Starting in 2018 at MSU, 12 undergraduate students were tasked with
sleuthing through of mounds of scientific publications to flesh out
existing records of fruit eaters, adding birds for a more holistic understanding of the forests.

Most exciting, Gerstner said, was entering 44 new species, like the
olinguito.

That's a member of the same family as racoons that lives in the cloud
forests of the northern Andes, and one that Gerstner studies. The
olinguito had been mistaken for the larger olingo, but upon being
discovered in 2013 has been found to indeed be genetically different.

"Natural history is entering the age of big data," said Phoebe Zarnetske, associate professor in integrative biology and director, Institute for Biodiversity, Ecology, Evolution, and Macrosystems (IBEEM). "Through Frugivoria, we are contributing to increasing the accessibility of natural history information traditionally found in museums and collections. This project provided a unique opportunity to engage numerous undergraduates
in research with data science and functional ecology.

Zarnetske said Frugivoria can help with both basic and applied questions
about species' functions in their environment. It can be used by
community scientists to learn more about species' natural history, and
it can aid in species conservation assessments "As a result," she said, "Frugivoria is part of something bigger -- we can leverage the power of
its big data to help solve the biodiversity crises." Getting Frugivoria
out where it's needed is Gerstner's goal. "My hope," she said, "is for
the database to be used by the International Union for the Conservation
of Nature and people doing on-the-ground conservation." Both Gerstner
and Zarnetske are members of MSU's Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior
Program and Spatial and Community Ecology (SpaCE) Lab The work behind "Frugivoria: A trait database for birds and mammals exhibiting frugivory
across contiguous Neotropical moist forests" was supported by a NASA
Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology,
a National Science Foundation Campus Cyberinfrastructure program and computational resources and services provided by the Institute for Cyber-Enabled Research of which co-author Patrick Bills is a member. In addition to the open access paper in Global Ecology and Biogeography,
the database itself is published open access with the Environmental
Data Initiative.

* RELATED_TOPICS
o Plants_&_Animals
# Nature # Ecology_Research # Biology # New_Species
o Earth_&_Climate
# Ecology # Environmental_Awareness # Environmental_Issues
# Environmental_Policy
* RELATED_TERMS
o Biodiversity_hotspot o Biodiversity o GenBank o Crane_fly
o Cormorant o Cheetah o Raining_animals o Veterinary_medicine

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Michigan_State_University. Note:
Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Beth E. Gerstner, Patrick Bills, Phoebe L. Zarnetske. Frugivoria:
A trait
database for birds and mammals exhibiting frugivory across
contiguous Neotropical moist forests. Global Ecology and
Biogeography, 2023; DOI: 10.1111/geb.13716 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/06/230620113803.htm

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