Seed dispersal limitations shift over time in tropical forest restoration

Seed dispersal limitations shift over time in tropical forest restoration.

Past studies have shown that tropical forest regeneration on degraded farmlands is initially limited by lack of seed dispersal, but few studies have tracked changes in abundance and composition of seed rain past the first few years after land abandonment. We measured seed rain for 12 months in 10 6-9-year-old restoration sites and five mature, reference forests in southern Costa Rica in order t...

Interspecific variation in primary seed dispersal in a tropical forest

1. We investigated the relationships of seed size, dispersal mode and other species characteristics to interspecific variation in mean primary seed dispersal distances, mean annual seed production per unit basal area, and clumping of seed deposition among 41 tropical tree species on Barro Colorado Island, Panama. 2. A hierarchical Bayesian model incorporating interannual variation in seed produ...

Directed seed dispersal by bellbirds in a tropical cloud forest.

A fundamental goal of plant population ecology is to understand the consequences for plant fitness of seed dispersal by animals. Theories of seed dispersal and tropical forest regeneration suggest that the advantages of seed dispersal for most plants are escape from seed predation near the parent tree and colonization of vacant sites, the locations of which are unpredictable in space and time. ...

Animal seed dispersal and the diversity of tropical forest trees.

For thosewho have admired the astonishing diversity of wet tropical forests, it is a near-universal experience to have seen an interesting tree and then not encountered another of the same species for quite some distance. Indeed, this striking tendency of tropical trees to be widely separated from their own kind inspired a major theory to explain tropical diversity, independently proposed by tw...

Seed Dispersal and Frugivory in Tropical Ecosystems