A frugivore is an animal that thrives mostly on raw fruits or succulent fruit-like produce of plants such as roots, shoots, nuts and seeds. Approximately 20% of mammalian herbivores eat fruit. Frugivores are highly dependent on the abundance and nutritional composition of fruits. Frugivores can benefit or hinder fruit-producing plants by either dispersing or destroying their seeds through digestion. When both the fruit-producing plant and the frugivore benefit by fruit-eating behavior the interaction is a form of mutualism.

Mutualism describes the ecological interaction between two or more species where each species has a net benefit. Mutualism is a common type of ecological interaction. Prominent examples are:the nutrient exchange between vascular plants and mycorrhizal fungi, the fertilization of flowering plants by pollinators, the ways plants use fruits and edible seeds to encourage animal aid in seed dispersal, and the way corals become photosynthetic with the help of the microorganism zooxanthellae.