Antagonistic-mutualistic interaction between parrots and plants in the context of global change: Biological introductions and novel ecosystems

Abstract

Parrots, and their fundamental role in the ecosystems played by the gradient of antagonistic-mutualistic interactions with plant communities, are currently under threat by anthropic activities. We reviewed scientific knowledge of antagonistic-mutualistic interaction between parrot and plant species, focusing on two key global change drivers: urbanization and species introduction. For this, we analyzed the state of knowledge on plant-parrot interactions considering their origin (native or non-native), and the environment type (natural, anthropic/non-urban and anthropic/urban) where interactions were studied. We analyzed 149 articles studying interactions between 126 parrot species and 1758 plant species. Most of these articles focused on the role of parrots as predators, as dispersers and/or pollinators, though very few studies focused on the net result of more than one interaction simultaneously. Articles focused mostly on native parrots interacting with native plants; although this changed with the environment type, single studies did not compare such differences. In natural and non-urban anthropic environments native parrots interacted mostly with native species. In urban areas both native and non-native parrots interacted with plants of both origins. We, here, provide recommendations based on our results and highlight important knowledge gaps to be filled related to interactions between parrot-plant along the antagonistic-mutualistic gradient, focusing on non-native species, and anthropic environments. Understanding the full range of the ecological interactions of parrots, and how they are affected by anthropic activities, will provide us with crucial information about the functioning of the environments they live in, which is also essential for the design of effective conservation strategies.