Skip to main content
Log in

Nest-mediated seed dispersal

Plant Ecology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Many plant seeds travel on the wind and through animal ingestion or adhesion; however, an overlooked dispersal mode may lurk within those dispersal modes. Viable seeds may remain attached or embedded within materials birds gather for nest building. Our objective was to determine if birds inadvertently transport seeds when they forage for plant materials to build, insulate, and line nests. We also hypothesized that nest-mediated dispersal might be particularly useful for plants that use mating systems with self-fertilized seeds embedded in their stems. We gathered bird nests in temperate forests and fields in eastern North America and germinated the plant material. We also employed experimental nest boxes and performed nest dissections to rule out airborne and fecal contamination. We found that birds collect plant stem material and mud for nest construction and inadvertently transport the seeds contained within. Experimental nest boxes indicated that bird nests were not passive recipients of seeds (e.g., carried on wind), but arrived in the materials used to construct nests. We germinated 144 plant species from the nests of 23 bird species. A large proportion of the nest germinants were graminoids containing self-fertilized seeds inside stems—suggesting that nest dispersal may be an adaptive benefit of closed mating systems. Avian nest building appears as a dispersal pathway for hundreds of plant species, including many non-native species, at distances of at least 100–200 m. We propose a new plant dispersal guild to describe this phenomenon, caliochory (calio = Greek for nest).

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

References

  • Aldrich JW, Banks RC, Cade TJ, Calders WA, Cooch FG, Emlen ST, Greenwell GA, Howell TR, Hubbard JP, Johnston DW, Johnston RF, Mewaldt LR (1975) Report of the American ornithologists; Union and ad hoc Committee on Scientific and Educational Use of Birds. The Auk 92(3, Supple.): 1A–27A

  • Anderson AH, Anderson A (1957) Life history of cactus wren. Part 1: winter and prenesting behavior. Condor 59:163–168

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Banks RC (1979) Human related mortality of birds in the United States. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Washington, DC, pp 1–16

    Google Scholar 

  • Bullock JJ, Kenward RE, Hails RS (eds) (2002) Dispersal Ecology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Cain ML, Damman H, Muir A (1998) Seed dispersal and the Holocene migration of woodland herbs. Ecol Monogr 68:325–347

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cheplick GP (2010) Limits to local spatial spread in a highly invasive annual grass (Microstegium vimineum). Biol Invasions 12:1759–1771

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Christen DC, Matlack GR (2009) The habitat and conduit functions of roads in the spread of three invasive plant species. Biol Invasions 11:453–465

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clobert J, Danchin E, Dhondt AA, Nichols JD (eds) (2001) Dispersal. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Collias NE, Collias EC (1984) Nest building and bird behavior. Princeton University Press, Princeton

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Culley TM, Klooster MR (2007) The cleistogamous breeding system: a review of its frequency, evolution, and ecology in angiosperms. Bot Rev 73:1–30

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Darwin C (1877) The different forms of flowers on plants of the same species. University of Chicago Press, Chicago

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Dean WRJ, Milton S, Siegfried WR (1990) Dispersal of seeds as nest material in semiarid Karoo shrubland. Ecology 71:1299–1306

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dixon C (1902) Birds’ nests: an introduction to the science of caliology. Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Dobrenz AK, Beetle AA (1966) Cleistogenes in Danthonia. J Range Manag 19:292–296

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gates JE, Gysel LW (1978) Avian nest dispersion and fledgling success in field-forest ecotones. Ecology 59:871–883

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gelbard JL, Belnap J (2003) Roads as conduits for exotic plant invasions in a semiarid landscape. Conserv Biol 17:420–432

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goodwillie C, Kalisz S, Eckert CG (2005) The evolutionary enigma of mixed mating systems in plants: occurrence, theoretical explanations, and empirical evidence. Annu Rev Ecol Syst 36:47–79

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harrison HH (1998) Peterson field guide: eastern birds’ nests. Houghton Mifflin Company, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Higgins SI, Nathan R, Cain ML (2003) Are long-distance dispersal events in plants usually caused by nonstandard means of dispersal? Ecology 84:1945–1956

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Holsinger KE (1986) Dispersal and plant mating systems: the evolution of self-fertilization in subdivided populations. Evolution 40:405–413

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hubbell SP (2001) The unified neutral theory of biodiversity and biogeography. Princeton University Press, Princeton

    Google Scholar 

  • Keyel AC, Strong AM, Perlut NG, Reed JM (2013) Evaluating the roles of visual openness and edge effects on nest-site selection and reproductive success in grassland birds. Auk 130:1–10

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Levine JM, Murrell DJ (2003) The community-level consequences of seed dispersal patterns. Annu Rev Ecol Evol Syst 34:549–574

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Longland WS, Clements C (1995) Use of fluorescent pigments in studies of seed caching by rodents. J Mammal 76:1260–1266

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lord EM (1981) Cleistogamy: a tool for the study of floral morphogenesis, function and evolution. Bot Rev 47:421–449

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Miller NP, Matlack GR (2010) Population expansion in an invasive grass, Microstegium vimineum: a test of the channelled diffusion model. Div Distrib 16:816–826

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Milton S, Dean WRJ, Kerley GIH, Hoffman MT, Whitford WG (1998) Dispersal of seeds as nest material by the Cactus Wren. Southwest Nat 43:449–452

    Google Scholar 

  • Mortensen DA, Rauschert ESJ, Nord AN, Jones BP (2009) Forest roads facilitate the spread of invasive plants. Invasive Plant Sci Manag 2:191–199

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nathan R, Muller-Landau HC (2000) Spatial patterns of seed dispersal, their determinants, and consequences for recruitment. Trends Ecol Evol 15:278–285

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Oakley CG, Moriuchi KS, Winn AA (2007) The maintenance of outcrossing in predominantly selfing species: ideas and evidence from cleistogamous species. Annu Rev Ecol Evol Syst 38:437–457

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pannell JR (2009) On the problems of a closed marriage: celebrating Darwin 200. Biol Lett 5:332–335

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Parendes LA, Jones JA (2000) Role of light availability and dispersal in exotic plant invasion along roads and streams in the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest, Oregon. Conserv Biol 14:64–75

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pulliam HR (2000) On the relationship between niche and distribution. Ecol Lett 3:349–361

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • R Development Core Team (2017) R: a language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna

    Google Scholar 

  • Schemske DW, Lande R (1985) The evolution of self-fertilization and inbreeding depression in plants. II. Empirical observations. Evolution 39:41–52

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Schmitt J, Ehrhardt D, Swartz D (1985) Differential dispersal of self-fertilized and outcrossed progeny in Jewelweed (Impatiens capensis). Am Nat 126:570–575

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • SID (2008) Royal Botanic Gardens Kew Seed Information Database Version 7.1. Royal Botanic Gardens

  • Soons MB, Brochet A-L, Kleyheeg E, Green AJ (2016) Seed dispersal by dabbling ducks: an overlooked dispersal pathway for a broad spectrum of plant species. J Ecol 104:443–455

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sorensen AE (1986) Seed dispersal by adhesion. Annu Rev Ecol Syst 17:443–463

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stiles EW (1980) Patterns of fruit presentation and seed dispersal in bird-disseminated woody plants in the eastern deciduous forest. Am Nat 116:670–688

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Surgey J, Du Feu CR, Deeming DC (2012) Opportunistic use of wool-like artificial material as lining of tit (Paridae) nests. Condor 114:385–392

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Traveset A, Heleno R, Nogales M (2014) The ecology of seed dispersal. In: Gallagher RS (ed) The ecology of regeneration in plant communities. CABI Publishing, Wallingford

    Google Scholar 

  • USDA, NRCS (2016) The PLANTS database. National Plant Data Team, Greensboro

    Google Scholar 

  • Warren RJ II, Giladi I (2014) Ant-mediated seed dispersal: a few ant species (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) benefit many plants. Myrmecol News 20:129–140

    Google Scholar 

  • Warren RJ II, Ursell T, Keiser AD, Bradford MA (2013) Habitat, dispersal and propagule pressure control exotic plant infilling within an invaded range. Ecosphere 4:26

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Watson L, Dallwitz MJ (1992) The grass genera of the world: descriptions, illustrations, identification, and information retrieval; including synonyms, morphology, anatomy, physiology, phytochemistry, cytology, classification, pathogens, world and local distribution, and references. CAB International, Wallingford

    Google Scholar 

  • Weakley AS (2015) Flora of the Southern and Mid-Atlantic States. University of North Carolina Herbarium (NCU), North Carolina Botanical Garden University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA

Download references

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Science Foundation award DEB-0823293 to the Coweeta LTER Program. Thanks to John Maerz and Jeff Hepinstall-Cymerman for agreeing to be the AUP sponsors for this project. Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory provided the greenhouse for the study. Also thanks to Kierra Love, Phillip Love, Ryan Chitwood, Jared Feura, Mason Cline, Jennifer Williams, Ed and Dianne Ralph, and Mainspring Conservation Trust. We thank two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on the manuscript.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Robert J. Warren II.

Additional information

Communicated by Martin Nunez.

Data Accessibility

The data generated and analyzed for the current study are available in the SUNY Buffalo State Digital Commons [http://digitalcommons.buffalostate.edu/biology_data/2/].

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary material 1 (XLSX 20 kb)

Supplementary material 2 (XLSX 11 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Warren, R.J., Love, J.P. & Bradford, M.A. Nest-mediated seed dispersal. Plant Ecol 218, 1213–1220 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11258-017-0763-5

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11258-017-0763-5

Keywords

Navigation