seed dispersal

seed dispersal, in botany, the movement or spread of seeds away from the parent plant. Given that seeds are essentially plant embryos and thus hold the genetic material of the next generation, the successful establishment of a plant’s progeny is important to the overall survival of the species. Seed dispersal increases the odds that at least some seeds will find a suitable site for germination and growth, and it can help reduce competition between parent and offspring for resources and sunlight. The movement of seeds can facilitate the colonization of new areas and the reestablishment of a species following a disturbance, such as a wildfire or human activity. Thus, it plays an important role in community and landscape ecology. While some seeds are dispersed independently of the fruits they matured in, others are dispersed together with the fruit, as is common in many edible fruits, nuts, and cereals. The dispersing agents for seeds and diaspores are indicated in such terms as anemochory, hydrochory, and zoochory, which mean dispersal by wind, water, and animals, respectively.

(Read Britannica’s “Falling Far from the Tree: 7 Brilliant Ways Seeds and Fruits Are Dispersed.”)

Zoochory: animal dispersal

A wide variety of animals aid in the dispersal of seeds, fruits, and diaspores. Many birds and mammals, ranging in size from mice and kangaroo rats to elephants, act as dispersers when they eat fruits and diaspores. Other animals, including fish, reptiles, and ants, are also important dispersers in certain ecosystems or for specific plants. Even earthworms and snails can disperse the small seeds of a very few plant species (e.g., of genus Adoxa).

Endozoochory, in which animals consume seeds or fruits that are then passed in their feces, is of major importance as a means of dispersal. Indeed, frugivory itself is thought to have evolved as a mutualism to facilitate seed dispersal in plants. Many scientists hold that this process helped flowering plants (angiosperms) diversify after their emergence during the Cretaceous Period (about 145 million to 66 million years ago). In contrast to granivory, or seed predation, in which seeds are digested and thus rendered nonviable, endozoochory is predicated on the assumption that the seeds will remain intact throughout the animal’s digestive system. Several plant-frugivore mutualisms have developed that pair more than one animal species with a single plant species. Most such mutualisms are limited to tropical ecosystems and commonly involve fruits produced by fig trees (Ficus) and mistletoes. Most seed-dispersal systems, however, are more generalized, matching one animal species to several plant species, and many use omnivores in addition to frugivorous animals.

Mammals

Beyond the numerous frugivorous and omnivorous mammal species that spread seeds in their feces, furry terrestrial mammals are the agents most frequently involved in epizoochory, the inadvertent carrying by animals of dispersal units. Burrlike seeds and fruits—or those diaspores provided with spines, hooks, claws, bristles, barbs, grapples, or prickles—are genuine hitchhikers, clinging tenaciously to their carriers. Their functional shape is achieved in various ways—in cleavers, or bedstraw (Galium aparine), and enchanter’s nightshade (Circaea lutetiana), the hooks are part of the fruit itself; in common agrimony (Agrimonia eupatoria), the fruit is covered by a persistent calyx (the flower sepals, which remain attached beyond the usual period) equipped with hooks; in wood avens (Geum urbanum), the persistent styles have hooked tips. Other examples are burr marigolds, or beggar’s-ticks (Bidens species); buffalo bur (Solanum rostratum); burdock (Arctium); Acaena; and many Medicago species.

A somewhat different principle is employed by the so-called trample burrs, said to lodge themselves into, between, or around the hooves of large grazing mammals. Examples are the mule grab (Proboscidea) and the African grapple plant (Harpagophytum). In water burrs, such as those of the water chestnut Trapa, the spines should probably be considered as anchoring devices.

Chiropterochory, or dispersal by large bats, such as flying foxes (Pteropus), and fruit bats, is particularly important in the tropics. Fruits adapted to these animals are relatively large and drab in color, with large seeds and a striking (often rank) odor. Such fruits are accessible to bats because of the pagoda-like structure of the tree canopy, fruit placement on the main trunk, or suspension from long stalks that hang free of the foliage. Examples are mangoes, guavas, breadfruit, carob, and several fig species.

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In South Africa a desert melon (Cucumis humifructus) participates in a symbiotic relationship with aardvarks: the animals eat the fruit for its water content and bury their own dung, which contains the seeds, near their burrows.

Birds

Birds, being preening animals, rarely carry burrlike diaspores on their bodies. They do, however, transport the very sticky (viscid) fruits of Pisonia, a tropical tree of the four-o’clock family, to distant Pacific islands in this way. In addition, small diaspores, such as those of sedges and certain grasses, may be carried in the mud sticking to waterfowl and terrestrial birds.

Synzoochory, deliberate carrying of diaspores by animals, is practiced when birds carry diaspores in their beaks. The European mistle thrush (Turdus viscivorus) deposits the viscid seeds of European mistletoe (Viscum album) on potential host plants when, after a meal of the berries, the bird whets its bill on branches or simply regurgitates the seeds. The North American (Phoradendron) and Australian (Amyema) mistletoes are dispersed by various birds, and the comparable tropical species of the plant family Loranthaceae by flowerpeckers (of the bird family Dicaeidae), which have a highly specialized gizzard that allows seeds to pass through but retains insects.

Plants may also profit from the forgetfulness and sloppy habits of certain nut-eating birds that cache part of their food but neglect to recover everything or that drop units on their way to a hiding place. Best known in this respect are the nutcrackers (Nucifraga), which feed largely on the “nuts” of the beech, oak, walnut, chestnut, and hazelnut; the jays (Garrulus), which hide hazelnuts and acorns; the nuthatches (family Sittidae); and the acorn, or California, woodpecker (Melanerpes formicivorus), which may embed literally thousands of acorns, almonds, and pecan nuts in bark fissures or holes of trees. Rodents, particularly squirrels, may aid in dispersal by stealing the embedded diaspores and burying them. In Germany an average jay may transport about 4,600 acorns per season over distances of up to 4 km (2.5 miles). Woodpeckers, nutcrackers, and squirrels are responsible for a similar dispersal of Pinus cembra in the Alps near the tree line.

Most ornithochores (plants with bird-dispersed seeds) have conspicuous diaspores attractive to such fruit-eating birds as thrushes, pigeons, barbets (members of the bird family Capitonidae), toucans (family Ramphastidae), and hornbills (family Bucerotidae), all of which either excrete or regurgitate the seed or kernel undamaged. Such diaspores have a fleshy, sweet, or oil-containing edible part; a striking color (often red or orange); no pronounced smell; protection against being eaten prematurely, in the form of acids and tannins that are present only in the green fruit; protection against digestion, afforded by bitterness, hardness, or the presence of poisonous compounds; permanent attachment; and, finally, absence of a hard outer cover. In contrast to bat-dispersed diaspores, these diaspores occupy no special position on the plant. Examples are rose hips, plums, dogwood fruits, barberry, red currant, mulberry, nutmeg fruits, figs, and blackberries.

The natural and abundant occurrence of Euonymus, which is a largely tropical genus, in temperate Europe and Asia, can be understood only in connection with the activities of birds. Birds also contributed substantially to the repopulation with plants of the Krakatoa island group in Indonesia after the catastrophic volcanic eruption there in 1883. In addition, birds have been involved with the spread of a number of invasive species. For example, birds made Lantana (originally American) a pest in Indonesia and Australia; the same is true of black cherries (Prunus serotina) in parts of Europe, Rubus species in Brazil and New Zealand, and olives (Olea europaea) in Australia.

Mimicry—the protection-affording imitation of a dangerous or toxic species by an edible, harmless one—is shown in reverse by certain bird-dispersed “coral seeds,” such as those of many species in the genera Abrus, Ormosia, Rhynchosia, Adenanthera, and Erythrina. Hard and often shiny red or black and red, many such seeds deceptively suggest the presence of a fleshy red aril and thus invite the attention of hungry birds.

Fish

Many intact fruits and seeds can serve as fish bait—for example, those of Sonneratia for the catfish Arius maculatus. Certain Amazon River fishes react positively to the audible “explosions” of the ripe fruits of Eperua rubiginosa. The largest freshwater wetlands in the world, found in Brazil’s Pantanal, become inundated with seasonal floods at a time when many plants are releasing their fruits. Pacu fish (including species of Metynnis, Piaractus and Colossoma) feed on submerged and floating fruits and disperse the seeds when they defecate. It is thought that at least one plant species, a palm (Bactris glaucescens), relies exclusively on pacu for seed dispersal.

(Read Britannica’s essay “Vegetarian Piranhas” about fish that disperse seeds.)

Ants

Mediterranean and North American harvester ants (Messor, Atta, Tetramorium, and Pheidole) are essentially destructive, storing and fermenting many seeds and eating them completely. Other ants (Lasius, Myrmica, and Formica species) eat only the fleshy edible appendage (the fat body, or elaiosome) of certain specialized seeds, which the ants disperse. Most myrmecochorous plants (species of violet, primrose, hepatica, cyclamen, anemone, corydalis, Trillium, and bloodroot) belong to the herbaceous spring flora of northern forests. The tree poppy (Dendromecon), however, is found in the dry California chaparral; Melica and Centaurea species, in arid Mediterranean regions.

The so-called ant epiphytes of the tropics (i.e., species of Hoya, Dischidia, Aeschynanthus, and Myrmecodia—plants that live in “ant gardens” on trees or offer the ants shelter in their own body cavities) constitute a special group of myrmecochores that provide oil in seed hairs. The ancestral forms of these hairs must have served in wind dispersal. The primary ant attractant of myrmecochorous seeds is not necessarily oil; instead, an unsaturated, somewhat volatile fatty acid is suspected in some cases. The myrmecochorous plant as a whole may also have specific adaptations; for example, cyclamen brings fruits and seeds within reach of ants by conspicuous coiling (shortening) of the flower stalk as soon as flowering is over.

Anemochory: wind dispersal

Anemochorous diaspores can be subdivided into flyers, including dust diaspores, and plumed or winged diaspores; and rollers, such as balloon seeds and tumbleweeds. Dispersal by means of minute dust diaspores produced in huge quantities is comparable to spore dispersal in lower plants; a “saturation bombing” is required to find the very limited number of targets, or favorable growth habitats, that exist. Not surprisingly, it is practiced mostly by total parasites, such as broomrapes (in which the finding of the specific host is a problem), and mycoheterotrophs (plants that live in close association with fungi that provide most of the plants’ nutrition). Many arboreal orchids also have dustlike seeds.

Winged fruits are most common in trees and shrubs, such as the maple, ash, elm, birch, alder, and dipterocarps (a family of nearly 700 species of Old World tropical trees). The one-winged propeller type, as found in maple, is called a samara. When fruits have several wings on their sides, rotation may result, as in rhubarb and dock species. Sometimes accessory parts form the wings—for example, the bracts (small green leaflike structures that grow just below flowers) in the linden (Tilia). Seeds with a thin wing formed by the testa (seed coat) are likewise most common in trees and shrubs, particularly in climbers, such as the jacaranda, the trumpet vine, the catalpa, yams, and  butter-and-eggs. Most famous of these is the seed with a giant membranaceous wing (15 cm [6 inches] long) of the Javan cucumber (Alsomitra macrocarpa), a tropical climber.

(Read Britannica’s essay “‘Flying’ Trees” about wind dispersal in tropical forests.)

Many fruits form plumes, some derived from persisting and ultimately hairy styles, as in the clematis, avens, and anemones; some from the perianth, as in the sedge family (Cyperaceae); and some from the pappus, a calyx structure, as in the dandelion and Jack-go-to-bed-at-noon (Tragopogon). Plumed seeds usually have tufts of light silky hairs at one end (rarely both ends) of the seeds—as in fireweed, milkweeds, and dogbane. In woolly fruits and seeds, the pericarp, or seed coat, is covered with cottonlike hairs—as in the willow, poplar and cottonwood as well as kapok, cotton, and balsa. In some cases, the hairs may serve double duty, in that they function in water dispersal as well as in wind dispersal.

In tumbleweeds, the whole plant or its fruiting portion breaks off and is blown across open country, scattering seeds as it goes; examples are Russian thistle, pigweed, tumbling mustard, perhaps rose of Jericho, and “windballs” of the grass Spinifex of Indonesian shores and Australian deserts. The inflated indehiscent (not opening when ripe) pods of Colutea arborea, a steppe plant, represent balloons capable of limited air travel before they hit the ground and become windblown tumbleweeds. Poppies have a mechanism in which the wind has to swing the slender fruitstalk back and forth before the seeds are thrown out through pores near the top of the capsule.

In the modern world, wind dispersal (although numerically important) often reflects the climatic and biotic poverty of certain regions; it is essentially a feature of pioneer vegetations. The flora of the Alps is 60 percent anemochorous; that of the Mediterranean garrigue (a scrubland region) is 50 percent. By making certain assumptions (e.g., for average wind velocity and turbulence), the “average limits of dispersal”—that is, the distance that 1 percent of the seeds or diaspores can reach—can be calculated for dispersal units of various construction and weight. This calculation yields values of 10 km (6 miles) for the dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) and 0.5 km (0.3 mile) for the European pine (Pinus sylvestris). Storms result in higher values—30 km (20 miles) for the poplar and 200 km (125 miles) for Senecio congestus. Too much success in dispersal may be ecologically futile, as exemplified by certain Florida orchids that arise from windblown West Indian seeds but do not multiply because of the lack of specific pollinators, usually certain bees or wasps.

Hydrochory: dispersal by water

Many marine, beach, pond, and swamp plants have waterborne seeds, which are made buoyant by being enclosed in corky fruits or air-containing fruits, or both; examples of these plants are water plantain, yellow flag, sea kale, sea rocket, sea beet, and all species of Rhizophoraceae, a family of mangroves. Sea dispersal of the coconut palm has been well proved; the fibrous mesocarp of the fruit, a giant drupe, provides buoyancy. Once the nut is ashore, the mesocarp also aids in aboveground germination by collecting rainwater; in addition, the endosperm has in its “milk” a provision for seedling establishment on beaches without much fresh water.

Purple loosestrife, monkey flower, Aster tripolium, and Juncus species (rushes) are often transported by water in the seedling stage. Rainwash down mountain slopes may be important in tropical forests. A “splashcup mechanism,” common in fungi for spore dispersal, is suggested by the open fruit capsule with exposed small seeds in the pearlwort (Sagina) and miterwort (Mitella). Hygrochasy, the opening of fruits in moist weather, is displayed by species of Mesembryanthemum, Sedum, and other plants of dry environments.

Self-dispersal

Best known in this category are the active ballists, which forcibly eject their seeds by means of various mechanisms. In the fruit of the dwarf mistletoe (Arceuthobium) of the western United States, a very high osmotic pressure (pressure accumulated by movement of water across cell membranes principally in only one direction) builds up that ultimately leads to a lateral blasting out of the seeds over distances of up to 15 meters (49 feet) with an initial velocity of about 95 km (60 miles) per hour. The squirting cucumber (Ecballium elaterium) also employs an osmotic mechanism.

In Scotch broom and gorse, however, drying out of the already dead tissues in the two valves of the seed pod causes a tendency to warp, which, on hot summer days, culminates in an explosive and audible separation of these valves, with violent seed release. Such methods may be coupled with secondary dispersal mechanisms, mediated by ants in the case of Scotch broom and gorse or by birds and mammals, to which sticky seeds may adhere, in the case of Arceuthobium and the squirting cucumber.

Other active ballists are species of geranium, violet, wood sorrel, witch hazel, touch-me-not (Impatiens), and acanthus. Probable ballist champions are Bauhinia purpurea, with an ejection distance of 15 meters (49 feet), and the sandbox tree (Hura crepitans), with 14 meters (46 feet).

Creeping diaspores are found in grasses such as Avena sterilis and Aegilops ovata, the grains of which are provided with bristles capable of hygroscopic movements (coiling and flexing in response to changes in moisture). The mericarps (fruit fragments of a schizocarp) of storksbill (Erodium species), when moistened, bury themselves with a corkscrew motion by unwinding a multiple-barbed beak-shaped appendage, which, in the dry state, was coiled. Such seeds and diaspores can thus move away from the parent plant and even bury themselves for germination.

Atelechory, the dispersal over a very limited distance only, represents a waste-avoiding defensive “strategy” that functions in further exploitation of an already occupied favorable site. This strategy is typical in old, nutrient-impoverished landscapes, such as those of southwestern Australia. The aim is often achieved by synaptospermy, the sticking together of several diaspores, which makes them less mobile, as in beet and spinach, and by geocarpy.

Geocarpy is defined as either the production of fruits underground, as in the arum lilies Stylochiton and Biarum, in which the flowers are already subterranean, or as the active burying of fruits by the mother plant, as in the peanut (Arachis hypogaea). In the American hog peanut (Amphicarpa bracteata), pods of a special type are buried by the plant and are cached by squirrels later on. Kenilworth ivy (Cymbalaria), which normally grows on stone or brick walls, stashes its fruits away in crevices after strikingly extending the flower stalks. Not surprisingly, geocarpy, like synaptospermy, is most often encountered in desert plants. However, it also occurs in violet species, in subterranean clover (Trifolium subterraneum)—even when it grows in France and England—and in begonias (Begonia hypogaea) of the African rainforest.

Barochory, the dispersal of seeds and fruits by gravity alone, is demonstrated by the heavy fruits of horse chestnut (genus Aesculus).