Microstegium vimineum is a shade tolerant annual C4 invasive grass in the Eastern US, which has been shown to negatively impact species diversity and succession in hardwood forests. To date, empirical studies have shown that population expansion is limited to <1 m yr(-1), which is largely driven by gravity dispersal. However, this likely does not fully account for all mechanisms of population-s...

1. Seed dispersal is a critical life stage of plants, yet accurate measurement of dispersal distances has been difficult in natural systems. Genetic techniques for matching dispersed seeds to maternal trees provide valuable data on dispersal events. Questions remain regarding how best to estimate the population seed dispersal distance distributions from such data and how these estimates compare...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Myrmecochory is a conspicuous feature of several sclerophyll ecosystems around the world but it has received little attention in the semi-arid areas of South America. This study addresses the importance of seed dispersal by ants in a 2500-km(2) area of the Caatinga ecosystem (north-east Brazil) and investigates ant-derived benefits to the plant through myrmecochory. METHOD...

Introduction Understanding seed dispersal is critical to understanding plant population and community dynamics (Nathan & Muller-Landau 2000), especially in tropical forests where seed rain of virtually all plant species is sparse and patchy (Hubbell et al. 1999; Muller-Landau et al. 2002). Seed rain determines potential population growth rates and spatial patterns, as well as the relative influ...

Migratory birds are often suggested to be important vectors for long-distance dispersal (LDD) of plant and animal propagules. The scale of such dispersal events (hundreds to thousands of kilometers) can influence landscape-level biological processes and species distributions. However, the few vector species studied and the lack of proper integration of their migratory movement in models of LDD ...

Plant species vary greatly in their responsiveness to nutritional soil mutualists, such as mycorrhizal fungi and rhizobia, and this responsiveness is associated with a trade-off in allocation to root structures for resource uptake. As a result, the outcome of plant competition can change with the density of mutualists, with microbe-responsive plant species having high competitive ability when m...

We study a model of seed dispersal that considers the inclusion of an animal disperser moving diffusively, feeding on fruits and transporting the seeds, which are later deposited and capable of germination. The dynamics depends on several population parameters of growth, decay, harvesting, transport, digestion and germination. In particular, the deposition of transported seeds at places away fr...

Anthropogenic activity is driving population declines and extinctions of large-bodied, fruit-eating animals worldwide. Loss of these frugivores is expected to trigger negative cascading effects on plant populations if remnant species fail to replace the seed dispersal services provided by the extinct frugivores. A collapse of seed dispersal may not only affect plant demography (i.e., lack of re...

Although spatial patterns of seed distribution are thought to vary greatly among plant species dispersed by different vectors, few studies have directly examined this assumption. We compared patterns of seed rain of nine species of trees disseminated by large birds, monkeys, and wind in a closed canopy forest in Cameroon. We used maximumlikelihood methods to fit seed rain data to four dispersal...

Scatter-hoarding rodents are effective dispersal agents for many plant species. Several studies have shown that rodents repeatedly re-cache seeds. The re-caching process often has a significant impact on final seedling establishment, but the factors determining its occurrence are poorly understood. In this study, we followed the fate of 3564 artificial seeds that varied in size, nutrient conten...