From ratites to rats: the size of fleshy fruits shapes species' distributions and continental rainforest assembly.

ABSTRACT: Seed dispersal is a key process in plant spatial dynamics. However, consistently applicable generalizations about dispersal across scales are mostly absent because of the constraints on measuring propagule dispersal distances for many species. Here, we focus on fleshy-fruited taxa, specifically taxa with large fleshy fruits and their dispersers across an entire continental rainforest biome. We compare species-level results of whole-chloroplast DNA analyses in sister taxa with large and small fruits, to regional plot-based samples (310 plots), and whole-continent patterns for the distribution of woody species with either large (more than 30 mm) or smaller fleshy fruits (1093 taxa). The pairwise genomic comparison found higher genetic distances between populations and between regions in the

SUBMITTER: Rossetto M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4685777 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature