Accepted in 28/Jul/2014 Available on line in 9/Sep/2014

Abstract. Bats are good seed dispersers and hundreds of plants depend on them for reproduction and colonization of new areas. Estimating the quantity of seeds dispersed by bats is necessary to better understanding the role and magnitude of those animals as ecological agents and providers of environmental services. Here, we investigated the seed load carried by bats of Piper marginatum Jacq., a pioneer species in the northeastern Atlantic Forest of Brazil. We were guided by a central question: on average, how many seeds are transported when a bat removes one infrutescence (hereafter fruit) from a plant? Between July 2011 and January 2012, 590 fruits were monitored for 27 weeks, taking 13 weeks for their maturation, and 11 weeks from complete removal. Correlations and regressions based on fruit length, diameter, weight, and number of total and ripe seeds indicated that a single 14.2 cm (the average size of a mature fruit) ripe fruit contains, on average, 848 seeds (800 ripe). Based on a sample of 149 ripe fruits monitored weekly, we observed that, on average, 16,4 ± 11,8 fruits are removed per week, resulting in the transportation of nearly 13,120 ripe seed. Our data allows a better estimation on the quantity of seeds dispersed by bats, emphasizing the ecological services they provide