TY - JOUR
T1 - Mildly toxic shrubs as indicators of goats herbivory give information for the management of natural landscapes on Mediterranean islands
AU - Capó, Miquel
AU - Engelbrecht, Chiara
AU - Cardona, Carles
AU - Castells, Eva
AU - Bartolomé, Jordi
AU - Ramoneda, Marta
AU - Baraza, Elena
N1 - Copyright © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
PY - 2021/9/10
Y1 - 2021/9/10
N2 - Herbivory of insular plant communities by introduced animals has been widely studied for decades. Though their diet mainly includes palatable and highly nutritive species, goats will also eat plants that are toxic to other animals. Thus, severe affection of toxic species may indicate high herbivore pressure or a low quality of vegetative food. To evaluate whether herbivory damage to low-palatability shrubs could give us information about feral goat pressure on vegetation, we assessed the predation impact of feral goats on the shrub Euphorbia dendroides (Euphorbiaceae) on Mallorca Island (Spain). We aimed to investigate whether goats consume juvenile E. dendroides and affect their population structure and determine if the plants increase the concentrations of toxic compounds as an adaptation to herbivory. Overall, two experimental plots and analysis of eleven natural populations indicated E. dendroides is affected by ungulates and that the population structure change with the presence of feral goats. Euphorbia dendroides could be used as an ecological indicator to determine the extent of ungulate damage to vegetation or indicate poor food availability, and thus inform the maintenance of optimal animal populations. Depending on the management objective for the territory, E. dendroides could be used as an ecological indicator to determine the extent of ungulate damage to vegetation or indicate poor food availability for animals, and thus inform the maintenance of optimal animal populations.
AB - Herbivory of insular plant communities by introduced animals has been widely studied for decades. Though their diet mainly includes palatable and highly nutritive species, goats will also eat plants that are toxic to other animals. Thus, severe affection of toxic species may indicate high herbivore pressure or a low quality of vegetative food. To evaluate whether herbivory damage to low-palatability shrubs could give us information about feral goat pressure on vegetation, we assessed the predation impact of feral goats on the shrub Euphorbia dendroides (Euphorbiaceae) on Mallorca Island (Spain). We aimed to investigate whether goats consume juvenile E. dendroides and affect their population structure and determine if the plants increase the concentrations of toxic compounds as an adaptation to herbivory. Overall, two experimental plots and analysis of eleven natural populations indicated E. dendroides is affected by ungulates and that the population structure change with the presence of feral goats. Euphorbia dendroides could be used as an ecological indicator to determine the extent of ungulate damage to vegetation or indicate poor food availability, and thus inform the maintenance of optimal animal populations. Depending on the management objective for the territory, E. dendroides could be used as an ecological indicator to determine the extent of ungulate damage to vegetation or indicate poor food availability for animals, and thus inform the maintenance of optimal animal populations.
KW - Demography
KW - Euphorbia dendroides
KW - Herbivory
KW - Mediterranean
KW - Triterpenoids
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85105267877&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.147391
DO - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.147391
M3 - Article
C2 - 33964774
AN - SCOPUS:85105267877
VL - 786
JO - Science of the Total Environment
JF - Science of the Total Environment
SN - 0048-9697
M1 - 147391
ER -