Aslan, Clare and Beckman, Noelle G. and Rogers, Haldre S. and Bronstein, Judie and Zurell, Damaris and Hartig, Florian and Shea, Katriona and Pejchar, Liba and Neubert, Mike and Poulsen, John and HilleRisLambers, Janneke and Miriti, Maria and Loiselle, Bette and Effiom, Edu and Zambrano, Jenny and Schupp, Geno and Pufal, Gesine and Johnson, Jeremy and Bullock, James M. and Brodie, Jedediah and Bruna, Emilio and Cantrell, Robert Stephen and Decker, Robin and Fricke, Evan and Gurski, Katie and Hastings, Alan and Kogan, Oleg and Razafindratsima, Onja and Sandor, Manette and Schreiber, Sebastian and Snell, Rebecca and Strickland, Christopher and Zhou, Ying (2019) Employing plant functional groups to advance seed dispersal ecology and conservation. AOB PLANTS, 11 (2): plz006. ISSN 2041-2851,
Full text not available from this repository. (Request a copy)Abstract
Seed dispersal enables plants to reach hospitable germination sites and escape natural enemies. Understanding when and how much seed dispersal matters to plant fitness is critical for understanding plant population and community dynamics. At the same time, the complexity of factors that determine if a seed will be successfully dispersed and subsequently develop into a reproductive plant is daunting. Quantifying all factors that may influence seed dispersal effectiveness for any potential seed-vector relationship would require an unrealistically large amount of time, materials and financial resources. On the other hand, being able to make dispersal predictions is critical for predicting whether single species and entire ecosystems will be resilient to global change. Building on current frameworks, we here posit that seed dispersal ecology should adopt plant functional groups as analytical units to reduce this complexity to manageable levels. Functional groups can be used to distinguish, for their constituent species, whether it matters (i) if seeds are dispersed, (ii) into what context they are dispersed and (iii) what vectors disperse them. To avoid overgeneralization, we propose that the utility of these functional groups may be assessed by generating predictions based on the groups and then testing those predictions against species-specific data. We suggest that data collection and analysis can then be guided by robust functional group definitions. Generalizing across similar species in this way could help us to better understand the population and community dynamics of plants and tackle the complexity of seed dispersal as well as its disruption. Seed dispersal is critical to plant fitness and plant community dynamics. However, measuring and tracking all factors that influence seed dispersal effectiveness for any potential seed-disperser relationship would require an unrealistically large amount of time, materials and financial resources. Building on current frameworks, we suggest that seed dispersal ecology quantify seed dispersal at the scale of plant functional groups, in order to reduce complexity to manageable levels. Based on functional group classifications, plant species can be distinguished by their level of dependence on seed dispersal and its mechanisms.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | LONG-DISTANCE DISPERSAL; TROPICAL FOREST; DEMOGRAPHIC CONSEQUENCES; ELASTICITY ANALYSIS; DENSITY-DEPENDENCE; FLYING FOXES; GROWTH-RATE; SURVIVAL; RAIN; DIVERSITY; dependency; directed dispersal; dispersal vectors; generalization; mutualism; seed dispersal effectiveness |
| Subjects: | 500 Science > 580 Botanical sciences |
| Divisions: | Biology, Preclinical Medicine > Institut für Pflanzenwissenschaften > Group Theoretical Ecology (Prof. Dr. Florian Hartig) |
| Depositing User: | Petra Gürster |
| Date Deposited: | 27 Mar 2020 11:44 |
| Last Modified: | 27 Mar 2020 11:44 |
| URI: | https://pred.uni-regensburg.de/id/eprint/27195 |
Actions (login required)
 |
View Item |
