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Epilobium hirsutum seed head dispersing seeds. In spermatophyte plants, seed dispersal is the movement, spread or transport of seeds away from the parent plant. [1] Plants have limited mobility and rely upon a variety of dispersal vectors to transport their seeds, including both abiotic vectors, such as the wind, and living vectors such as birds.
The patterns of seed dispersal are determined in large part by the specific dispersal mechanism, and this has important implications for the demographic and genetic structure of plant populations, as well as migration patterns and species interactions. There are five main modes of seed dispersal: gravity, wind, ballistic, water, and by animals.
Barochory is seed dispersal by gravity alone in which a plant's seeds fall beneath the parent plant. [8] These seeds commonly have heavy seed dispersal syndromes. [ 13 ] However, heavy seeds may not be a form of seed dispersal syndrome, but a random seed characteristic that has no dispersal purpose.
The seeds are fleshy, short-lived, and germinate rapidly where they land. Being poisonous and distasteful, they are not attractive to candidate transport animals, so the rolling diaspore is a very effective dispersal strategy for such plants. Genera with this means of seed dispersal include Ammocharis, Boophone, Crossyne and Brunsvigia. [17]
Anemochory is dispersal of units by wind. Wind is a major agent of long distance dispersal that helps to spread species to new habitats. [20] Each species has its own "wind dispersal potential". This is the proportion of dispersal units (seeds, spores or pollen) that travel farther than a specific distance travelled under normal weather ...
It is uncommon for pathogens to be transmitted from the plant to its seeds (in sexual reproduction or in apomixis), though there are occasions when it occurs. [2] [page needed] Seeds generated by apomixis are a means of asexual reproduction, involving the formation and dispersal of seeds that do not originate from the fertilization of the embryos.
Wind dispersal of dandelion fruits. Plants can be said to migrate, as seed dispersal enables plants to grow in new areas, under environmental constraints such as temperature and rainfall. When those constraints change, the border of a plant species's distribution may move, so the plant may be said to migrate, as for example in forest migration ...
Wind and animal dispersals are two major mechanisms involved in the dispersal of conifer seeds. Wind-born seed dispersal involves two processes, namely; local neighborhood dispersal and long-distance dispersal. Long-distance dispersal distances range from 11.9–33.7 kilometres (7.4–20.9 mi) from the source. [26]