TY - JOUR
T1 - Advancing an interdisciplinary framework to study seed dispersal ecology
AU - Beckman, Noelle G.
AU - Aslan, Clare E.
AU - Rogers, Haldre S.
AU - Kogan, Oleg
AU - Bronstein, Judith L.
AU - Bullock, James M.
AU - Hartig, Florian
AU - HilleRisLambers, Janneke
AU - Zhou, Ying
AU - Zurell, Damaris
AU - Brodie, Jedediah F.
AU - Bruna, Emilio M.
AU - Cantrell, Robert Stephen
AU - Decker, Robin R.
AU - Efiom, Edu
AU - Fricke, Evan C.
AU - Gurski, Katherine
AU - Hastings, Alan
AU - Johnson, Jeremy S.
AU - Loiselle, Bette A.
AU - Miriti, Maria N.
AU - Neubert, Michael G.
AU - Pejchar, Liba
AU - Poulsen, John R.
AU - Pufal, Gesine
AU - Razafindratsima, Onja H.
AU - Sandor, Manette E.
AU - Shea, Katriona
AU - Schreiber, Sebastian
AU - Schupp, Eugene W.
AU - Snell, Rebecca S.
AU - Strickland, Christopher
AU - Zambrano, Jenny
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Annals of Botany Company. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - Although dispersal is generally viewed as a crucial determinant for the fitness of any organism, our understanding of its role in the persistence and spread of plant populations remains incomplete. Generalizing and predicting dispersal processes are challenging due to context dependence of seed dispersal, environmental heterogeneity and interdependent processes occurring over multiple spatial and temporal scales. Current population models often use simple phenomenological descriptions of dispersal processes, limiting their ability to examine the role of population persistence and spread, especially under global change. To move seed dispersal ecology forward, we need to evaluate the impact of any single seed dispersal event within the full spatial and temporal context of a plant's life history and environmental variability that ultimately influences a population's ability to persist and spread. In this perspective, we provide guidance on integrating empirical and theoretical approaches that account for the context dependency of seed dispersal to improve our ability to generalize and predict the consequences of dispersal, and its anthropogenic alteration, across systems. We synthesize suitable theoretical frameworks for this work and discuss concepts, approaches and available data from diverse subdisciplines to help operationalize concepts, highlight recent breakthroughs across research areas and discuss ongoing challenges and open questions. We address knowledge gaps in the movement ecology of seeds and the integration of dispersal and demography that could benefit from such a synthesis. With an interdisciplinary perspective, we will be able to better understand how global change will impact seed dispersal processes, and potential cascading effects on plant population persistence, spread and biodiversity.
AB - Although dispersal is generally viewed as a crucial determinant for the fitness of any organism, our understanding of its role in the persistence and spread of plant populations remains incomplete. Generalizing and predicting dispersal processes are challenging due to context dependence of seed dispersal, environmental heterogeneity and interdependent processes occurring over multiple spatial and temporal scales. Current population models often use simple phenomenological descriptions of dispersal processes, limiting their ability to examine the role of population persistence and spread, especially under global change. To move seed dispersal ecology forward, we need to evaluate the impact of any single seed dispersal event within the full spatial and temporal context of a plant's life history and environmental variability that ultimately influences a population's ability to persist and spread. In this perspective, we provide guidance on integrating empirical and theoretical approaches that account for the context dependency of seed dispersal to improve our ability to generalize and predict the consequences of dispersal, and its anthropogenic alteration, across systems. We synthesize suitable theoretical frameworks for this work and discuss concepts, approaches and available data from diverse subdisciplines to help operationalize concepts, highlight recent breakthroughs across research areas and discuss ongoing challenges and open questions. We address knowledge gaps in the movement ecology of seeds and the integration of dispersal and demography that could benefit from such a synthesis. With an interdisciplinary perspective, we will be able to better understand how global change will impact seed dispersal processes, and potential cascading effects on plant population persistence, spread and biodiversity.
KW - Analytical models
KW - Demography
KW - Global change
KW - Individual-based models
KW - Long-distance seed dispersal
KW - Population models
KW - Seed dispersal
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85101056357&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1093/AOBPLA/PLZ048
DO - 10.1093/AOBPLA/PLZ048
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:85101056357
SN - 2041-2851
VL - 12
JO - AoB PLANTS
JF - AoB PLANTS
IS - 2
ER -