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Abstract
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| Assessing the relative importance of extrinsic and intrinsic factors affecting seed ecology is a key challenge to fully understand the role of plants and animals in seed dispersal. Seed retrieval is a crucial phase within the seed dispersal process since the probability of a seed escaping recovery will determine the probability that it will survive and develop into a new seedling. Intrinsic seed factors (e.g. size, content) may have evolved the ability to manipulate scatter-hoarder behavior to decrease the probability of seed recovery. However, it is far from clear whether seed recovery is mostly a plant-driven process or incidental to the animal activity (mostly an animal-driven process). Following this, we compare the relative importance of intrinsic (seed weight, seed quality, seed-drop timing) and extrinsic seed factors (i.e. mostly animal-driven) in the probability of seed recovery. We considered the next animal-driven factors: microsite of deposition, burial depth, cache size, frequency of seed handling and distance to shelter. We used acorns of Quercus pyrenaica Willd. in a temperate oak forest in Southern Europe where scatter-hoarding rodents are the main acorn dispersers. We used model averaging techniques to ascertain the relative importance (value from 0 to 1) of each variable. | |
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International
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Si |
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Congress
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99th Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America. |
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960 |
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Place
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Sacramento, EE.UU. |
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Reviewers
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Si |
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ISBN/ISSN
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00-0000-000-0 |
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Start Date
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10/08/2014 |
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End Date
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15/08/2014 |
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