BACKGROUND AND AIMS Plants have evolved a variety of seed dispersal mechanisms to overcome lack of mobility. Many species embed seeds in fleshy pulp to elicit endozoochory, i.e. disseminating seed through the animal gut. In contrast to well-studied fleshy fruited plants, dry-fruited plants may exploit this dispersal mutualism by producing fleshy appendages as a nutritional reward to entice anim...

Abstract The expansion of alien plant species is global concern, yet our understanding their dispersal mechanisms limited. Here we address the potential seeds to disperse via ingestion, transport and egestion in waterfowl (endozoochory). Based on general rapid expansions, expected have several advantages for endozoochory compared native species. We hypothesised that would higher passage rate, l...

Botanical fruits derive from ovaries and their most important function is to favor seed dispersal. Fleshy fruits do so by attracting frugivorous animals that disperse seeds together with their own excrements (endozoochory). Gymnosperms make seeds but have no ovaries to be transformed into fruits. Many species surround their seeds with fleshy structures and use endozoochory to disperse them. Suc...

Endozoochory is important to the dynamics and regeneration of forest ecosystems. Despite the universality of inter-annual variation in fruit production, few studies have addressed the sign (seed predation versus seed dispersal) and strength (frequency and quantity) of fruit-frugivore interaction and the effectiveness of endozoochory in response to the long-term temporal context. In this study I...

during last two decades studies on endozoochorous seed dispersal indicated that a large numbers of plant seeds are potentially dispersed and suceefully germinated via animal dung. however, very little is known about the relative importance of endozoochory in germination success of plant species in semi-steppe rangelands. in this paper we examined dung germinating seed content, seed deposition p...

Plant dispersal syndromes are allocated based on diaspore morphology and used to predict the dominant mechanisms of dispersal. Many authors assume that only angiosperms with endozoochory, epizoochory or anemochory have a long-distance (LDD) mechanism. Too much faith is often placed in classical explain historical events future ones. What usually recorded as ‘endozoochory syndrome' reality ‘frug...