Seed Dispersal Interactions Promoting Plant Invasions

FERRERAS, ANA E.; PAIARO, VALERIA; DÍAZ VÉLEZ, MARÍA C.

Plant Invasions: The Role of Biotic Interactions

CAB International

Año: 2020; p. 90 - 104

Animal dispersers are essential for many non-native plants since they facilitate seed movement and might promote seed germination and seedling establishment, thereby increasing their chances of invasion. This chapter reviews the published literature on seed dispersal of non-native plant species by native and/or non-native animals. The following questions are addressed: i) Are interactions between non-native plants and their animal dispersers evenly studied worldwide? ii) Which are the distinctive traits (i.e. geographical origin, life form, dispersal strategy and propagule traits) of non-native plants that are dispersed by animals? iii) Which are the most studied groups of dispersers of non-nativeplants around the world? iv) Does the literature provide evidence for the Invasional Meltdown Hypothesis (non-native plant?non-native disperser facilitation)? v) What is the role of animal dispersers at different stages of the non-native plant regeneration process? Our dataset of 204 articles indicates that geographical distribution of the studies was highly heterogeneous among continents, with the highest number coming from North America and the lowest from Asia and Central America. Most of the non-native plants involved in dispersal studies were woody species from Asia with fleshy fruits dispersed by endozoochory. More than the half of the animal dispersal agents noted were birds, followed by mammals, ants and reptiles. The dominance of bird-dispersal interactions over other animal groups was consistent across geographical regions. Although most of the studies involved only native dispersers, interactions among non-native species were detected, providing support for the existence of invasional meltdown processes. Of the total number of reviewed articles reporting seed removal, 74% evaluated seed dispersal, but only a few studies included seed germination (35.3%), seedling establishment (5.4 %) or seed predation (23.5 %). Finally, we discuss some research biases and directions for future studies in the area.