Spatiotemporal strategies that facilitate recruitment in a habitat specialist tree species

Fruit of Myristica fatua with a woody capsule split into two halves and an unripe arillate seed. Photo credits: Shivani Krishna
Fruit of Myristica fatua with a woody capsule split into two halves and an unripe arillate seed. Photo credits: Shivani Krishna

Species that are restricted to specialized, rare habitats, such as Myristica fatua (a swamp specialist tree), cannot afford to send propagules too far and risk arriving in inhospitable habitats. In a recent study published in AoB PLANTS, Krishna and Somanathan followed the fate of seeds from fruiting till seedling establishment to examine the ecological strategies that such species employ to escape from seed predators and find the right germination sites. They found that M. fatua bears a few large-sized seeds and fruits for extended periods of time, meaning that few seeds are produced at any particular point of time, thus escaping detection by seed predators. Dispersal over small distances within the swamp was facilitated by hornbills and crabs.

AoBPLANTS

AoB PLANTS is an open-access, online journal that publishes peer-reviewed articles on all aspects of environmental and evolutionary biology. Published by Oxford University Press, AoB PLANTS provides a fast-track pathway for publishing high-quality research, where papers are available online to anyone, anywhere free of charge. Reasons to publish in AoB PLANTS include double-blind peer review of manuscripts, rapid processing time and low open-access charges.

Read this in your language

The Week in Botany

On Monday mornings we send out a newsletter of the links that have been catching the attention of our readers on Twitter and beyond. You can sign up to receive it below.

@BotanyOne on Mastodon

Loading Mastodon feed...

Audio


Archive