The Avian Dispersal of Olives Olea europaea: Implications for Australia

Abstract

Around the Mediterranean olives are an important food source for birds, and are now emerging as a significant component of the diet of some Australian frugivores. Attempts over the past 200 years to establish an olive oil industry in Australia have led to many neglected olive groves which have become havens for frugivorous birds. Worldwide, olives have proved to be a successful invader of disturbed lands, with birds as the principal seed vectors. A proliferation of new olive orchards in the 1990s and the effect of naturalisation on the size of olive drupes has the potential, with help from the avian fauna, to accelerate the dispersal of this woody weed in Australia.