Rattan spines as deterrence? A spinescence study on different species of rattans.

Rattan spines are most often regarded as an identification trait and perhaps as a physical protection structure. In this study, we study the spinescence traits from five different species rattan: , and . We tested length, width, angle, strength, spine density, cross-section surface, spine color, and leaf trichomes (only for and ). We also tested whether the spines were capable of deterring small climbing mammals (for and ) by using a choice selection experiment. Due to a variety of spine traits, we could not categorize whether any species is more or less spinescent than the others. We suggest that spines have a much more significant role than merely as a physical defense and work together with other rattan characteristics. This is also evidenced by our choice selection experiment, in which the spines on a single stem donot deter small climbing mammals. However, this is a work in progress, and we have outlined several alternative methods to be used in future work.