Despite the probable extinction of closely related sister species and genera, and the evolution of morphological structures as adaptations to changing environmental conditions, they still share basic reproductive traits...
Although dispersal is generally viewed as a crucial determinant for the fitness of any organism, our understanding of its role in the persistence and spread of plant populations remains incomplete. Dispersal influences...
The distribution and abundance of plants across the world depends in part on their ability to move, which is commonly characterized by a dispersal kernel (a probability density function describing where seeds land...
As the single opportunity for plants to move, seed dispersal has an important impact on plant fitness, species distributions and patterns of biodiversity. However, models that predict extinction risk of species, range...
Myrmecochory is a mutualistic interaction in which ants disperse the seeds of plants. The defining feature of such plants is the elaiosome, a lipid rich seed appendage that serves as a reward to the ants. It is...
Hunting in otherwise intact tropical forests removes organisms from some trophic levels, which can change population and community dynamics at other levels. The preferred game species can be dispersers of seeds (e.g...
Although one shouldn’t, it is easy to accept that flowers (the defining feature of the angiosperms, the flowering plants) are ‘just there’ and get on with life in their quiet, seemingly unremarkable way. If one...
… and now to … dinosaurs (!). Dinosaurs? Well, we did say at the outset of this mini series of articles that ‘seeds and animals’ was a very old association. Unlike the other animal associations mentioned already in this...
The ongoing destruction of old-growth forests puts tropical forest species, with epiphytes as a key element, under great pressure. To maintain viable epiphyte communities in fragmented landscapes, remaining habitable...
Having reached mammals in our meanderings, and the human involvement in global plant dispersal (admirably explored in Michael Pollan’s book The Botany of Desire) notwithstanding, we couldn’t ignore our nearest and...