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Visitation Patterns (visitation + pattern)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Life Sciences	75%

Selected Abstracts

Bird Assemblage and Visitation Pattern at Fruiting Elmerrillia tsiampaca (Magnoliaceae) Trees in Papua New Guinea

BIOTROPICA, Issue 2 2010
Steffen Oppel
ABSTRACT Most tropical trees produce fleshy fruits that attract frugivores that disperse their seeds. Early demography and distribution for these tree species depend on the effects of frugivores and their behavior. Anthropogenic changes that affect frugivore communities could ultimately result in changes in tree distribution and population demography. We studied the frugivore assemblage at 38 fruiting Elmerrillia tsiampaca, a rain forest canopy tree species in Papua New Guinea. Elmerrillia tsiampaca is an important resource for frugivorous birds at our study site because it produces abundant lipid-rich fruits at a time of low fruit availability. We classified avian frugivores into functional disperser groups and quantified visitation rates and behavior at trees during 56 canopy and 35 ground observation periods. We tested predictions derived from other studies of plant,frugivore interactions with this little-studied frugivore assemblage in an undisturbed rain forest. Elmerrillia tsiampaca fruits were consumed by 26 bird species, but most seeds were removed by eight species. The most important visitors (Columbidae, Paradisaeidae and Rhyticeros plicatus) were of a larger size than predicted based on diaspore size. Columbidae efficiently exploited the structurally protected fruit, which was inconsistent with other studies in New Guinea where structurally protected fruits were predominantly consumed by Paradisaeidae. Birds vulnerable to predation foraged for short time periods, consistent with the hypothesis that predator avoidance enhances seed dispersal. We identified seven functional disperser groups, indicating there is little redundancy in disperser groups among the regular and frequent visitors to this tropical rain forest tree species. [source]

Skiing Less Often in a Warmer World: Attitudes of Tourists to Climate Change in an Australian Ski Resort

GEOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH, Issue 2 2010
CATHERINE MARINA PICKERING
Abstract Climate change will affect tourism destinations that are dependent on natural resources, such as snow. Currently there is limited research into attitudes, intentions and actual visitation patterns of skiers in response to reduced snow cover. Therefore the awareness of, and attitudes towards, climate change of 351 ski tourists were assessed in the largest ski resort in Australia in 2007, repeating a survey conducted in 1996. Ninety percent of skiers in 2007 would ski less often in Australian resorts if the next five years had low natural snow, up from 75% of skiers surveyed in 1996: 69% would ski less often, 5% would give up and 16% would ski at the same levels but overseas. Nearly all skiers thought that climate change would affect the ski industry (87% compared with 78% in 1996), and that this would occur sooner than in the 1996 survey. Visitation in a poor snow year (2006, +0.85°C average annual temperature, 54% less natural snow) was ,13.6% of the long-term average, indicating poor natural snow resulted in decreased visitation, despite extensive use of snow making. The implications of changes in climate conditions and tourist attitudes for Australian ski resorts are assessed including for snow making and summer tourism. [source]

Behavior of queen bumblebee pollinators on Primula sieboldii (Primulaceae) in response to different patch sizes and spacing

PLANT SPECIES BIOLOGY, Issue 3 2007
FUMIKO ISHIHAMA
Abstract Pollinator visitation patterns are strongly affected by the spatial structure of a plant population. We assessed the effects of the size and spacing of patches on the foraging behavior of queens of Bombus diversus tersatus on a heterostylous perennial species, Primula sieboldii, using an experimental population. We compared Akaike's information criterion (AIC) among candidate statistical models, and models with patch size had the lowest AIC in various aspects of visitation behavior. Visitation frequency per patch increased with increasing patch size, but the proportion of visited flowers decreased. As a result of this combination of visitation patterns, visitation frequency per flower was only slightly affected by patch size. This result indicates that the bumblebees came close to an ideal free distribution for the use of resources in terms of the patch size within a population. From the plant's point of view, increasing the number, but decreasing the proportion, of flowers visited in larger patches would maximize reproductive success by minimizing inbreeding. Although patch size strongly affected visitation frequencies, patch spacing had a moderate effect only on the visitation frequency per patch. Visitation frequency per patch was higher with closer spacing between patches. No evidence for an interaction between patch size and spacing was detected. [source]