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Employing plant functional groups to advance seed dispersal ecology and conservation.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Aslan, C; Beckman, NG; Rogers, HS; Bronstein, J; Zurell, D; Hartig, F; Shea, K; Pejchar, L; Neubert, M; Poulsen, J; HilleRisLambers, J ...
Published in: AoB PLANTS
April 2019

Seed dispersal enables plants to reach hospitable germination sites and escape natural enemies. Understanding when and how much seed dispersal matters to plant fitness is critical for understanding plant population and community dynamics. At the same time, the complexity of factors that determine if a seed will be successfully dispersed and subsequently develop into a reproductive plant is daunting. Quantifying all factors that may influence seed dispersal effectiveness for any potential seed-vector relationship would require an unrealistically large amount of time, materials and financial resources. On the other hand, being able to make dispersal predictions is critical for predicting whether single species and entire ecosystems will be resilient to global change. Building on current frameworks, we here posit that seed dispersal ecology should adopt plant functional groups as analytical units to reduce this complexity to manageable levels. Functional groups can be used to distinguish, for their constituent species, whether it matters (i) if seeds are dispersed, (ii) into what context they are dispersed and (iii) what vectors disperse them. To avoid overgeneralization, we propose that the utility of these functional groups may be assessed by generating predictions based on the groups and then testing those predictions against species-specific data. We suggest that data collection and analysis can then be guided by robust functional group definitions. Generalizing across similar species in this way could help us to better understand the population and community dynamics of plants and tackle the complexity of seed dispersal as well as its disruption.

Duke Scholars

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Published In

AoB PLANTS

DOI

EISSN

2041-2851

ISSN

2041-2851

Publication Date

April 2019

Volume

11

Issue

2

Start / End Page

plz006

Related Subject Headings

  • 3108 Plant biology
  • 3103 Ecology
  • 0607 Plant Biology
 

Citation

APA
Chicago
ICMJE
MLA
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Aslan, C., Beckman, N. G., Rogers, H. S., Bronstein, J., Zurell, D., Hartig, F., … Zhou, Y. (2019). Employing plant functional groups to advance seed dispersal ecology and conservation. AoB PLANTS, 11(2), plz006. https://doi.org/10.1093/aobpla/plz006
Aslan, Clare, Noelle G. Beckman, Haldre S. Rogers, Judie Bronstein, Damaris Zurell, Florian Hartig, Katriona Shea, et al. “Employing plant functional groups to advance seed dispersal ecology and conservation.AoB PLANTS 11, no. 2 (April 2019): plz006. https://doi.org/10.1093/aobpla/plz006.
Aslan C, Beckman NG, Rogers HS, Bronstein J, Zurell D, Hartig F, et al. Employing plant functional groups to advance seed dispersal ecology and conservation. AoB PLANTS. 2019 Apr;11(2):plz006.
Aslan, Clare, et al. “Employing plant functional groups to advance seed dispersal ecology and conservation.AoB PLANTS, vol. 11, no. 2, Apr. 2019, p. plz006. Epmc, doi:10.1093/aobpla/plz006.
Aslan C, Beckman NG, Rogers HS, Bronstein J, Zurell D, Hartig F, Shea K, Pejchar L, Neubert M, Poulsen J, HilleRisLambers J, Miriti M, Loiselle B, Effiom E, Zambrano J, Schupp G, Pufal G, Johnson J, Bullock JM, Brodie J, Bruna E, Cantrell RS, Decker R, Fricke E, Gurski K, Hastings A, Kogan O, Razafindratsima O, Sandor M, Schreiber S, Snell R, Strickland C, Zhou Y. Employing plant functional groups to advance seed dispersal ecology and conservation. AoB PLANTS. 2019 Apr;11(2):plz006.
Journal cover image

Published In

AoB PLANTS

DOI

EISSN

2041-2851

ISSN

2041-2851

Publication Date

April 2019

Volume

11

Issue

2

Start / End Page

plz006

Related Subject Headings

  • 3108 Plant biology
  • 3103 Ecology
  • 0607 Plant Biology