DISPERSAL OF SEEDS BY VARIOUS

AGENTS
ABSTRACT:
The Process of scattering of fruits and seeds to distant places away from their
parent is called dispersal or dissemination. It provides the new plants better
chances of obtaining water, nutrients, lights and space thereby enabling them to
have a better start in Life.

The fruits and seeds develop many devices for better dispersal through different
agencies.

The principle agencies that aid in the dispersal of fruits and seeds are wind
(anemochory), water (hydrochory) and animals including man (zoochory). Besides,
some plants show self dispersal by explosive mechanism (autochory). The
dispersal through the agency of animals in considered as the best and most
successful method. Dispersal through agency of animals is considered as the best
and most successful method. Dispersal of seeds and fruits is quite Interesting
subject of natural phenomenon and hence the study of dispersal of seeds by
various agencies has been selected for the present project.
BENEFITS:
Seed dispersal is likely to have several benefits for plant species.
1. Seed survival is often higher away from the parent plant. This higher survival
may result from the actions of density-dependent seed and seedling predators and
pathogens, which often target the high concentrations of seeds beneath adults.
Competition with adult plants may also be lower when seeds are transported away
from their parent.

Seed dispersal also allows plants to reach specific habitats that are favorable for
survival, a hypothesis known as directed dispersal. Male bellbirds perch on dead
trees in order to attract mates, and often defecate seeds beneath these perches
where the seeds have a high chance of survival because of high light conditions
and escape from fungal pathogens.

2. In the case of fleshy-fruited plants, seed-dispersal in animal guts

(endozoochoric) often enhances the amount, the speed, and the asynchrony of
germination, which can have important plant benefits.

3.Seeds dispersed by ants (myrmecochory) are not only dispersed short distances
but are also buried underground by the ants. These seeds can thus avoid adverse
environmental effects such as fire or drought, reach nutrient-rich microsites and
survive longer than other seeds.

4. These features are peculiar to myrmecochory, which may thus provide

additional benefits not present in other dispersal modes.

5. Finally, at another scale, seed dispersal may allow plants to colonize vacant
habitats and even new geographic regions.
GRAVITY(AUTOCHORY):
1.Barochory or the plant use of gravity for dispersal is a simple means of
achieving seed dispersal. The effect of gravity on heavier fruits causes them to
fall from the plant when ripe. Fruits exhibiting this type of dispersal include
apples, coconuts and passionfruit and those with harder shells (which often roll
away from the plant to gain more distance). Gravity dispersal also allows for
later transmission by water or animal.

2 Two other types of autochory are allochory (the seed is forcefully ejected by
dehiscence and squeezing) and herpochory(the seed crawls by means of
trichomes and changes in humidity).

WIND (ANEMOCHORY):
* Wind dispersal (anemochory) is one of the more primitive means of dispersal.
Wind dispersal can take on one of two primary forms: seeds can float on the breeze
or alternatively, they can flutter to the ground.

* The classic examples of these dispersal mechanisms include dandelions, which

have a feathery pappus attached to their seeds and can be dispersed long
distances, and maples, which have winged seeds (samara) and flutter to the
ground. An important constraint on wind dispersal is the need for abundant seed
production to maximise the likelihood of a seed landing in a site suitable for
germination. However, limited wind in its habitat prevents the seeds to
successfully disperse away from its parents, resulting in clusters of population.
Reliance on wind dispersal is common among many weedy or ruderal species.

WATER (HYDROCHORY):
Many aquatic (water) and some terrestrial (ground) plant species use hydrochory,
or seed dispersal through water. Seeds can travel for extremely long distances,
depending on the specific mode of water dispersal. This is because some fruits
are waterproof and can float.

The water lily is an example of such a plant. Water lilies' flowers make a fruit that
floats in the water for a while and then drops down to the bottom to take root on
the floor of the pond.
The seeds of palm trees can also be dispersed by water. If they grow near oceans,
the seeds can be transported by ocean currents over long distances, allowing the
seeds to be dispersed as far as other continents.

BY ANIMALS (ZOOCHORY):
The small hooks on the surface of barbs enable attachment to animal fur for
dispersion. Animals can disperse plant seeds in several ways, all named zoochory.
Seeds can be transported on the outside of vertebrate animals (mostly mammals),
a process known as epizoochory. Plant species transported externally by animals
can have a variety of adaptations for dispersal, including adhesive mucus, and a
variety of hooks, spines and barbs. The small hooks on the surface of barbs enable
attachment to animal fur for dispersion.
However, epizoochory is a relatively rare dispersal syndrome for plants as a whole;
the percentage of plant species with seeds adapted for transport on the outside
of animals is estimated to be below 5%.

Seed dispersal via ingestion by vertebrate animals (mostly birds and mammals),
or endozoochory, is the dispersal mechanism for most tree species. Endozoochory
is generally a coevolved mutualistic relationship in which a plant surrounds seeds
with an edible, nutritious fruit as a good food for animals that consume it. Birds
and mammals are the most important seed dispersers, but a wide variety of other
animals, including turtles and fish, can transport viable seeds.

Seed predators, which include many rodents (such as squirrels) and some birds
(such as jays) may also disperse seeds by hoarding the seeds in hidden caches.
The seeds in caches are usually well-protected from other seed predators and if
left uneaten will grow into new plants. In addition, rodents may also disperse
seeds via seed spitting due to the presence of secondary metabolites in ripe fruits.

Other types of zoochory are chiropterochory (by bats), malacochory (by mollusks,
mainly terrestrial snails), ornithochory (by birds) and saurochory (by non-bird
sauropsids).

Dispersal by humans (anthropochory) used to be seen as a form of dispersal by

animals. Recent research points out that human dispersers differ from animal
dispersers by a much higher mobility based on the technical means of human
transport. Dispersal by humans on the one hand may act on large geographical
scales and lead to invasive species. On the other hand, dispersal by humans also
acts on smaller, regional scales and drives the dynamics of existing biological
populations. Humans may disperse seeds by many various means and some
surprisingly high distances have been repeatedly measured. Examples are:
dispersal on human clothes (up to 250 m),on shoes (up to 5 km) or by cars
(regularly ~ 250m, singles cases > 100 km).

MATERIALS REQUIRED:
Different types of seeds and fruits, Knife, Foreceps, Petridishes, Hand lens etc.

EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE:
1. Collect different types of seeds and observe their feature carefully, Classify
them according to their mode of dispersal.

2. Similarly cut open different types of Fruits, note down the feature of their seeds
and classify them according to the mode of dispersal.

3. Record Observation
OBSERVATION:
CONCLUSION:
Seed dispersal has many consequences for the ecology and evolution of plants.
Dispersal is necessary for species migrations, and in recent times dispersal ability
is an important factor in whether or not a species transported to a new habitat by
humans will become an invasive species. Dispersal is also predicted to play a
major role in the origin and maintenance of species diversity.

Dispersal of seeds away from the parent organism has a central role in two major
theories for how biodiversity is maintained in natural ecosystems. Seed dispersal
is essential in allowing forest migration of flowering plants.

In addition, the speed and direction of wind are highly influential in the dispersal
process and in turn the deposition patterns of floating seeds in the stagnant water
bodies. The transportation of seeds is led by the wind direction. This effects
colonization situated on the banks of a river or to wetlands adjacent to streams
relative to the distinct wind directions. The wind dispersal process can also effect
connections between water bodies. Essentially, wind plays a larger role in the
dispersal of waterborne seeds in a short period of time, days and seasons, but the
ecological process allows the process to become balanced throughout a time
period of several years. The time period of which the dispersal occurs is essential
when considering the consequences of wind on the ecological process.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seed_dispersal

• https://www.britannica.com

• Information from library

• Comprehensive Lab Manual J.P. Sharma