As the single opportunity for plants to move, seed dispersal has an important impact on plant fitness, species distributions and patterns of biodiversity. However, models that predict dynamics such as risk of extinction, range shifts and biodiversity loss tend to rely on the mean value of parameters and rarely incorporate realistic dispersal mechanisms. By focusing on the mean population value, variation among individuals or variability caused by complex spatial and temporal dynamics is ignored. This calls for increased efforts to understand individual variation in dispersal and integrate it more explicitly into population and community models involving dispersal. However, the sources, magnitude and outcomes of intraspecific variation in dispersal are poorly characterized, limiting our understanding of the role of dispersal in mediating the dynamics of communities and their response to global change. In this manuscript, we synthesize recent research that examines the sources of individual variation in dispersal and emphasize its implications for plant fitness, populations and communities. We argue that this intraspecific variation in seed dispersal does not simply add noise to systems, but, in fact, alters dispersal processes and patterns with consequences for demography, communities, evolution and response to anthropogenic changes. We conclude with recommendations for moving this field of research forward.

中文翻译：

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种子传播的种内变异对植物种群、群落、进化和全球变化的影响。

作为植物移动的唯一机会，种子传播对植物适应性、物种分布和生物多样性模式具有重要影响。然而，预测灭绝风险、范围变化和生物多样性丧失等动态的模型往往依赖于参数的平均值，很少考虑现实的扩散机制。通过关注平均总体值，个体之间的差异或由复杂的空间和时间动态引起的变异性被忽略。这就需要加大力度了解扩散的个体差异，并将其更明确地整合到涉及扩散的人口和社区模型中。然而，种内传播变异的来源、程度和结果却很少被描述，这限制了我们对传播在调节群落动态及其对全球变化的反应中的作用的理解。在这份手稿中，我们综合了最近的研究，研究了个体传播变异的来源，并强调了其对植物适应性、种群和群落的影响。我们认为，种子传播的这种种内变异不仅会给系统增加噪音，而且实际上改变了传播过程和模式，从而对人口、群落、进化和对人为变化的反应产生影响。最后，我们提出了推动这一研究领域向前发展的建议。