In Arabidopsis, rapid expansion of the coenocytic endosperm after fertilisation has been proposed to drive early seed growth, which is in turn constrained by the seed coat. This hypothesis implies physical heterogeneity between the endosperm and seed coat compartments during early seed development, which to date has not been demonstrated. Here, we combine tissue indentation with modelling to sh...

Factors that determine the effectiveness of primates as seed dispersers include (i) the microsite into which they deposit seed, (ii) secondary removal of seed by other taxa and (iii) the effect of gut passage and/or spitting on subsequent seed germination. This contribution evaluated these factors in the little studied putty-nosed monkey, Cercopithecus nictitans, in a Nigerian montane forest. F...

different layers of acorn (quercus infectoria), hull, seed coat and seed kernel were analyzed for determination of chemical composition. the results of the preliminary analysis showed that acorn contained more than 65% carbohydrates, 8% lipid and 10% tannin among other constituents. the fatty acid composition of the seed oil was determined using thin layer chromatography and comparing with ...

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1. Local plant community assembly is influenced by a series of filters that affect the recruitment and establishment of species. These filters include regional factors that limit seeds of any given species from reaching a local site as well as local interactions such as post-dispersal seed predation and disturbance, which dictate what species actually establish. How these filters interact to in...

1 Results from patch-occupancy metapopulation models indicate that a trade-off between competitive and colonization abilities is necessary for species to coexist in patchy environments. However, such models are often based on unrealistic ecological assumptions, such as global dispersal and no local population dynamics. 2 We develop a plant metapopulation model that allows us to sequentially rel...

The nature of weeds is a complex adaptive, soil-seed communication system. The nature of weedy Setaria life history is an adaptable, changeable system in which complex behaviors emerge when self-similar plant components self-organize into functional traits possessing biological information about spatial structure and temporal behavior. The nature of the weedy Setaria is revealed in the physical...

Recent studies indicate that strong systems of property rights are not a necessary condition for the operation of the soybean seed market in the Americas (Wright; Pardey, 2006; Endres; Goldsmith, 2007). These studies are based on a dichotomy. The North – represented by the U.S. – is a strong institutional environment in which agrobiotechnology firms adopt an optimal strategy, setting technologi...

The weed seed bank of a long-term tillage study in subarctic Alaska was studied at the end of 10 years of continuous spring barley (Hordeum vulgare L.). Tillage treatments were: no-till, disked once (spring), disked twice (spring and fall), and chisel plow (fall). Soil cores were obtained from each tillage treatment and seeds were manually separated from soil after washing through sieves. Tilla...

Recent theoretical research has shown that ocean currents and wind interact to disperse seeds over long distances among isolated landmasses. Dispersal of seeds among isolated oceanic islands, by birds, oceans and man, is a well-known phenomenon, and many widespread island plants have traits that facilitate this process. Crucially, however, there have been no mechanistic vector-based models of l...