retention time variability as a mechanism for animal mediated long-distance dispersal保留时间变化作为动物的机制介导的远距离传播.pdfVIP

Retention Time Variability as a Mechanism for Animal Mediated Long-Distance Dispersal 1,2 3 4 5 Vishwesha Guttal *, Frederic Bartumeus , Gregg Hartvigsen , Andrew L. Nevai 1 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, United States of America, 2 Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, 3 Center for Advanced Studies of Blanes, CEAB-CSIC, Blanes, Spain, 4 Department of Biology, SUNY Geneseo, College Circle, Geneseo, New York, United States of America, 5 Department of Mathematics, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida, United States of America Abstract Long-distance dispersal (LDD) events, although rare for most plant species, can strongly influence population and community dynamics. Animals function as a key biotic vector of seeds and thus, a mechanistic and quantitative understanding of how individual animal behaviors scale to dispersal patterns at different spatial scales is a question of critical importance from both basic and applied perspectives. Using a diffusion-theory based analytical approach for a wide range of animal movement and seed transportation patterns, we show that the scale (a measure of local dispersal) of the seed dispersal kernel increases with the organisms’ rate of movement and mean seed retention time. We reveal that variations in seed retention time is a key determinant of various measures of LDD such as kurtosis (or shape) of the kernel, thinkness of tails and the absolute number of seeds falling beyond a threshold distance. Using empirical data sets of frugivores, we illustrate the importance of v