How can animals disperse seeds?

Question

Sebastian Alvarado · Accepted Answer

Seeds can be dispersed when an animal consumes the seeds and later excretes it, or if the seed catches onto the fur/skin of the animal and falls off later.

One way that animals can spread seeds is by eating them. This usually occurs with plants that bear fruit, where the sweet fruit attracts the animal to eat the seeds, which it does and then excretes the seeds in a different place where they can grow. The most common examples of this are berries, like raspberries. Some seeds have hooks attached to them that allow animals to cling to them when they brush against the plant; the seeds then fall off and sprout in a new location. An excellent illustration of symbiotic mutualism is the relationship between oak trees and squirrels. The squirrels harvest acorns from the trees, consume some of them, but burrow many of them. They frequently forget where they bury the acorns, allowing them to grow. This is crucial because when acorns fall directly beneath the tree, they frequently lack sufficient light to grow and many of them cannot germinate on the surface. The oak trees provide the squirrels with a food source, and the squirrels have a mechanism for dispersing their seeds throughout the forest.

Ruby Armstrong · Answer

undefined Animals can disperse seeds through methods such as ingestion and subsequent excretion, attachment to fur or feathers, transport in specialized seed pods or structures, and unintentional transportation in mud or debris adhering to their bodies.