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Mucilage binding to ground protects seeds of many plants from harvester ants: A functional investigation
Functional Ecology ( IF 5.2 ) Pub Date : 2021-07-16 , DOI: 10.1111/1365-2435.13881
Vincent S. Pan 1 , Marshall McMunn 2 , Richard Karban 2 , Jake Goidell 2 , Marjorie G. Weber 3 , Eric F. LoPresti 1
Affiliation  

  1. The seeds of many plant species produce mucilage on their surfaces that when wetted and dried, firmly adheres seeds to surfaces and substrates. Previous studies have demonstrated that seed anchorage to the ground can reduce seed predation, although only a few species have thus far been tested.
  2. Here we investigated whether binding to the ground reduces seed removal by harvester ants Pogonomyrmex subdentatus, an important granivore, for 53 species with mucilaginous seeds. We also explored functional traits that associate with seed removal risk to understand the ecological and evolutionary context of this granivory resistance trait.
  3. Using a field cafeteria choice experiment, we compared harvester ant seed removal of wetted ground-bound seeds to dry unbound control seeds for these 53 species. We developed a simple assay to score dislodgement force. We examined whether this force, seed mass and seed mucilage production explained the interspecific variation in protection that we observed in field seed removal. We integrated these experiments with a broad scale test of correlates of seed attachment using a previously published dataset of attachment potential of mucilaginous seeds for 432 species, examining correlations of attachment potential with 13 plant traits and the climate characteristics of the species' range.
  4. Binding to the ground reduced seed removal in 42 of 53 species tested. The benefit increased with seed dislodgement force, which itself increased with mucilage production, but not with seed mass. In the larger dataset, shorter plant life span, higher temperature, more solar radiation, higher humidity, fewer wet days per year and higher seed density correlated positively with the odds of seed attachment. We also found that attachment potential showed a concave down quadratic relationship with latitude, peaking at roughly 30°. No strong evidence that any of the other six predictors correlated with attachment potential was found.
  5. We demonstrate that protection from granivores is a widespread convergent function of seed mucilage and is associated with mucilage production. We highlight the need for increased mechanistic investigations into this common but poorly studied trait, particularly in relation to functional drivers of the broad patterns we found.


中文翻译:

粘液与地面的结合保护许多植物的种子免受收获蚁的侵害:一项功能研究

  1. 许多植物物种的种子在其表面产生粘液,当它们变湿和干燥时,将种子牢固地粘附在表面和基质上。先前的研究表明,将种子固定在地面上可以减少种子的捕食,尽管迄今为止只有少数物种进行了测试。
  2. 在这里,我们调查了与地面结合是否会减少收获蚂蚁Pogonomyrmex subdentatus 的种子去除,这是一种重要的食粮动物,对 53 种具有粘液种子的物种。我们还探索了与种子去除风险相关的功能性状,以了解这种谷物抗性性状的生态和进化背景。
  3. 使用野外自助餐厅选择实验,我们比较了这 53 个物种的收获机蚂蚁种子去除湿润的地面种子与干燥未结合的对照种子。我们开发了一种简单的测定方法来对移动力进行评分。我们检查了这种力、种子质量和种子粘液产生是否解释了我们在田间种子去除中观察到的保护的种间差异。我们使用先前发布的 432 种粘液种子附着潜力数据集将这些实验与种子附着相关性的广泛测试相结合,检查附着潜力与 13 种植物性状的相关性以及物种范围的气候特征。
  4. 在测试的 53 种物种中,有 42 种与地面结合减少了种子去除。益处随着种子移出力而增加,而移出力本身随着粘液产生而增加,但不随种子质量而增加。在更大的数据集中,更短的植物寿命、更高的温度、更多的太阳辐射、更高的湿度、每年更少的潮湿天数和更高的种子密度与种子附着的几率呈正相关。我们还发现依恋潜力与纬度呈下凹二次关系,在大约 30° 处达到峰值。没有强有力的证据表明其他六个预测因子中的任何一个都与依恋潜力相关。
  5. 我们证明对食肉动物的保护是种子粘液的广泛收敛功能,并且与粘液生产有关。我们强调需要对这种常见但研究不足的特征进行更多的机械研究,特别是与我们发现的广泛模式的功能驱动因素有关。
更新日期:2021-07-16
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