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Mast species composition alters seed fate in North American rodent‐dispersed hardwoods
Author(s) -
Lichti Nathanael I.,
Steele Michael A.,
Zhang Hao,
Swihart Robert K.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
ecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.144
H-Index - 294
eISSN - 1939-9170
pISSN - 0012-9658
DOI - 10.1890/13-1657.1
Subject(s) - biology , seed dispersal , predation , ecology , seed predation , dormancy , mutualism (biology) , seed dormancy , seed dispersal syndrome , biological dispersal , germination , botany , population , demography , sociology
Interactions between plants and scatter‐hoarding animals may shift from mutualism to predation as a function of the resources available to those animals. Because seed species differ in their nutrient content and defenses to predation, resource selection and cache management by scatter‐hoarders, and thus seed fate, may also depend on the relative availability of different seed types. We tracked the fates of tagged Castanea dentata , Quercus alba , and Q. rubra seeds presented to rodents in pairwise combinations and found that C. dentata , which has moderate dormancy prior to germination, survived better in the presence of Q. alba (no dormancy) than with Q. rubra (longer dormancy). Decisions made by scatter‐hoarders in response to the composition of available seed resources can alter the relationship between masting and seed dispersal effectiveness in individual tree species and may have influenced the evolution of asynchrony among species‐specific masting patterns in temperate forests. In theory, preferential allocation of certain seed species to storage or consumption could also result in indirect apparent predation by one seed species on another.