Plant Dispersal Ecology

A special issue of Plants (ISSN 2223-7747). This special issue belongs to the section "Plant Ecology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 December 2022) | Viewed by 5271

Special Issue Editor

Institute of Botany, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, 1180 Vienna, Austria
Interests: plant population biology; dispersal ecology; biodiversity; grassland restoration

Special Issue Information

Plants is going to publish a Special Issue on plant dispersal ecology.

Dispersal processes are crucial for population biology and ecology of plants as sessile organisms. Especially long-distance dispersal is of disproportionately high importance for large scale processes of spreading to unoccupied habitats and of gene flow between populations. It is a prerequisite for the general stability and persistence of metapopulations/species. Commonness and rarity, risk of extinction and invasive potential of plant species is directly dependent on dispersal success or dispersal limitation. In recent times plant dispersal processes are in focus of scientific interest also due to their relevance for the ability of species to adapt to changing climate conditions and due to the transferability of this knowledge to modelling of spreading patterns and risk assessment for the distribution of pathogens and diseases. Successful dispersal is dependent both on the availability of dispersal vectors and on the adaptations of plant diaspores to use them.

In spite of various studies, performed on plant dispersal processes in the last decades, there are still significant lacks of knowledge. Due to the high stochasticity of dispersal events in relation to the entire seed output, it is difficult to capture them by statistically valid methods. Modelling dispersal processes based on analyses of dispersal-relevant plant traits and genetic markers of isolated plant populations are further promising fields of research.

For the current issue we expect contributions to both theoretical and practical aspects of dispersal ecology – the availability of dispersal vectors, adaptations of plant species and consequences of these adaptations for commonness or rarity of the plants, their invasive potential, the ability to overcome natural or artificial dispersal barriers and the efficiency of nature conservation measures considering dispersal processes.

Dr. Leonid Rasran
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • plant propagules
  • isolation
  • reproductive traits
  • dispersal vectors
  • dispersal barriers
  • invasive species
  • anemochory
  • zoochory
  • hydrochory

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

11 pages, 1130 KiB  
Article
Hydrochorous Seed Transport in the Lower Traisen River before and after Riverbed Restoration
by Leonid Rasran, Kati Vogt, Marc Trattnig and Karl-Georg Bernhardt
Plants 2023, 12(13), 2409; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants12132409 - 22 Jun 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 765
Abstract
Hydrological restoration was carried out in a Lower Traisen, a small river within the floodplain of the Danube. The main goal was the reestablishment of typical riparian plant communities by using the potential of natural dispersal processes. We studied the transport of plant [...] Read more.
Hydrological restoration was carried out in a Lower Traisen, a small river within the floodplain of the Danube. The main goal was the reestablishment of typical riparian plant communities by using the potential of natural dispersal processes. We studied the transport of plant diaspores in the river water before and after the reconstruction of the riverbed. Aquatic seed traps were placed upstream and downstream of the restoration site. We identified the transported species and tested the viability of propagules. Functional species traits were analyzed to predict the probability of successful hydrochorous dispersal and changes in the transport pool due to the restoration. One-third of the local species pool was detected as being diaspores in the river. We observed a significant increase of ruderal species and neophytes, while the competitors and stress-tolerant competitors declined. Hydrochory is an important dispersal pathway for numerous plant species in the study area, including those without specific adaptations to this vector. Hydrochorous transport appears to be a sink for large-seeded species, primarily adapted to endozoochory. Follow-up management should be recommended to control the invasive species and to improve the structural and biological diversity of the Traisen Valley by supporting target species, which are also represented in the transport pool. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Plant Dispersal Ecology)
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17 pages, 1223 KiB  
Article
Seed Size, Not Dispersal Syndrome, Determines Potential for Spread of Ricefield Weeds by Gulls
by Juan Manuel Peralta-Sánchez, Albán Ansotegui, Francisco Hortas, Stella Redón, Víctor Martín-Vélez, Andy J. Green, María J. Navarro-Ramos, Adam Lovas-Kiss and Marta I. Sánchez
Plants 2023, 12(7), 1470; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants12071470 - 27 Mar 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2415
Abstract
Recent field data suggest that migratory gulls disperse many rice field weeds by gut passage (endozoochory), most of which are dry fruited and widely assumed to have no long-distance dispersal mechanisms, except via human activity. We investigated this mechanism with a feeding experiment, [...] Read more.
Recent field data suggest that migratory gulls disperse many rice field weeds by gut passage (endozoochory), most of which are dry fruited and widely assumed to have no long-distance dispersal mechanisms, except via human activity. We investigated this mechanism with a feeding experiment, in which seeds of five common rice field weeds (in order of increasing seed size: Juncus bufonius, Cyperus difformis, Polypogon monspeliensis, Amaranthus retroflexus, and the fleshy-fruited Solanum nigrum) were fed to seven individuals of lesser black-backed gulls Larus fuscus held in captivity. We quantified seed survival after collecting faeces at intervals for 33 h after ingestion, then extracting intact seeds and running germination tests, which were also conducted for control seeds. All five species showed high seed survival after gut passage, of >70%. Gut retention times averaged 2–4 h, but maxima exceeded 23 h for all species. Germinability after gut passage was 16–54%, and gut passage accelerated germination in J. bufonius and S. nigrum, but slowed it down in the other species. All species had lower germinability after gut passage compared to control seeds (likely due to stratification prior to the experiment), but the loss of germinability was higher in smaller seeds. There was no evidence that the different dispersal syndromes assigned to the five species (endozoochory, epizoochory or barochory) had any influence on our results. In contrast, mean gut retention time was strongly and positively related to seed size, likely because small seeds pass more quickly from the gizzard into the intestines. Non-classical endozoochory of dry-fruited seeds by waterbirds is a major but overlooked mechanism for potential long-distance dispersal, and more research into this process is likely essential for effective weed management. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Plant Dispersal Ecology)
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12 pages, 1251 KiB  
Article
Seed Size, Seed Dispersal Traits, and Plant Dispersion Patterns for Native and Introduced Grassland Plants
by Jane E. Tuthill, Yvette K. Ortega and Dean E. Pearson
Plants 2023, 12(5), 1032; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants12051032 - 24 Feb 2023
Viewed by 1807
Abstract
Most terrestrial plants disperse by seeds, yet the relationship between seed mass, seed dispersal traits, and plant dispersion is poorly understood. We quantified seed traits for 48 species of native and introduced plants from the grasslands of western Montana, USA, to investigate the [...] Read more.
Most terrestrial plants disperse by seeds, yet the relationship between seed mass, seed dispersal traits, and plant dispersion is poorly understood. We quantified seed traits for 48 species of native and introduced plants from the grasslands of western Montana, USA, to investigate the relationships between seed traits and plant dispersion patterns. Additionally, because the linkage between dispersal traits and dispersion patterns might be stronger for actively dispersing species, we compared these patterns between native and introduced plants. Finally, we evaluated the efficacy of trait databases versus locally collected data for examining these questions. We found that seed mass correlated positively with the presence of dispersal adaptations such as pappi and awns, but only for introduced plants, for which larger-seeded species were four times as likely to exhibit dispersal adaptations as smaller-seeded species. This finding suggests that introduced plants with larger seeds may require dispersal adaptations to overcome seed mass limitations and invasion barriers. Notably, larger-seeded exotics also tended to be more widely distributed than their smaller-seeded counterparts, again a pattern that was not apparent for native taxa. These results suggest that the effects of seed traits on plant distribution patterns for expanding populations may be obscured for long-established species by other ecological filters (e.g., competition). Finally, seed masses from databases differed from locally collected data for 77% of the study species. Yet, database seed masses correlated with local estimates and generated similar results. Nonetheless, average seed masses differed up to 500-fold between data sources, suggesting that local data provides more valid results for community-level questions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Plant Dispersal Ecology)
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