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Advantages and Disadvantages of Seed Dispersal
Advantages and Disadvantages of Seed Dispersal
Advantages and Disadvantages of Seed Dispersal
Plants have limited mobility and consequently rely upon a variety of dispersal vectors to transport their propagules, including both abiotic and biotic vectors. Seeds can be dispersed away from the parent plant individually or collectively, as well as dispersed in both space and time. The patterns of seed dispersal are determined in large part by the 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. Some plants are serotinous and only disperse their seeds in response to an environmental stimulus. It can be measured using seed traps.
These characteristics help the seeds to be dispersed by the wind. Other examples of seeds that are dispersed by the wind are the meranti, cotton plant, and lalang. The seeds are carried away to other places to germinate and grow
Water
A coconut fruit has a waxy surface. A waxy surface does not allow the fruit to get wet in water. A woody husk covering encloses the seed of the coconut fruit. The husk is able to trap air within it.
The coconut fruit is dispersed by water. Other examples of seeds are the water lily, mangrove, pong-pong and pandan. The fruits or seeds may travel for thousands of kilometers across seas and oceans before they germinate and grow on land.
Seeds dispersed by ants (myrmecochory) are not only dispersed to 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. These features are peculiar to myrmecochory, which may thus provide additional benefits not present in other dispersal modes. Finally, at another scale, seed dispersal may allow plants to colonize vacant habitats and even new geographic regions
A disadvantage is that seeds may be susceptible to fungal infection, dessication, and insect damage