Including seed dispersers into individual-based forest models

Abstract

Tropical forests provide many ecosystem services to human beings, many of which are mediated by animals. Nonetheless, there are few software tools that allow ecologists to explicitly include animals in forest models. I developed packages to implement individual-based models of trees and animals. The animal model focused on arboreal seed dispersers and includes a decision-making algorithm based on the behaviour of primates. I first describe the models independently and provide examples of how the software can be used to address questions of ecological concern, such as the effect of selective logging on carbon stocks, how deforestation and fragmentation affect animal movement and the impacts of defaunation on seed dispersal. Finally, I describe how to integrate seed dispersers into forest models. I found that this integration is not always necessary and provide guidelines on how to decide if seed dispersal should be explicitly modelled.