Nondormant Acorns Show Higher Seed Dispersal Effectiveness Than Dormant Ones

Seed dormancy has been thought to be an important survival strategy to tune the seed dispersal timing. Although a theoretical trade-off between seed dormancy and dispersal is often proposed, empirical field evidence of the trade-off between seed dormancy, spatial dispersal, and seedling recruitment...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inForests Vol. 13; no. 6; p. 881
Main Authors Yang, Yueqin, Yi, Xianfeng
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Basel MDPI AG 01.06.2022
Subjects
Animals
Dispersal
Dispersion
Dormancy
Experiments
Food
Germination
Life history
Oak
Plant populations
Seed dispersal
Seed germination
seedling establishment
Seedlings
Seeds
Species
trade-off
Tradeoffs
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Summary:Seed dormancy has been thought to be an important survival strategy to tune the seed dispersal timing. Although a theoretical trade-off between seed dormancy and dispersal is often proposed, empirical field evidence of the trade-off between seed dormancy, spatial dispersal, and seedling recruitment is still lacking. Here, we tracked seed dispersal of several Fagaceae species exhibiting different levels of dormancy both in artificial enclosures and in the field. We presented evidence that oak species with nondormant acorns rather than those bearing dormant species exhibit reduced spatial dispersal. Despite the empirical evidence that seed germination is negatively correlated with spatial dispersal, nondormancy rather than dormancy showed higher seed dispersal effectiveness, demonstrating a negative correlation between seed dormancy and dispersal fitness. Our study, using the oak-rodent system, may provide solid evidence of a dispersal–germination trade-off between spatial and temporal correlation, highlighting the ecological role of seed germination schedule in seed dispersal and life-history evolution.
ISSN:1999-4907
1999-4907
DOI:10.3390/f13060881