Abstract
Given their strong masticatory system and the powerful microbial digestion inside their complex guts, mammalian ruminants have been frequently considered seed predators rather than seed dispersers. A number of studies, however, have observed that ruminants are able to transport many viable seeds long distances, either attached to the hair or hooves (i.e. epizoochory) or inside their body after ingesting them (i.e. endozoochory). However, very few studies have investigated a modality of endozoochory exclusive to ruminants: the spitting of usually large-sized seeds while chewing the cud. A systematic review of the published information about this type of endozoochory shows a marked scarcity of studies. Nonetheless, at least 48 plant species belonging to 21 families are dispersed by ruminants by this way. Most of these plants are shrubs and trees, have fleshy or dry fruits with large-sized seeds, and are seldom dispersed via defecation. Many cases have been observed in tropical areas, where more frugivorous ruminant species occur, but other records are from temperate and dry areas, covering thus all continents except Antarctica. Twenty one species of ruminants from 18 genera have been reported as endozoochore spitters. They involve domestic and wild species belonging to the families Tragulidae, Cervidae and Bovidae. This suggests that almost any ruminant species could potentially eat fruits and regurgitate large hard seeds during rumination. Likely, this seed dispersal mechanism has been neglected due to the difficulty of observing rumination behaviour and locating spat seeds. Further research on the potential of wild and domestic ruminant species as long-distance seed dispersers through spitting seeds from the cud appears particularly important given their increasing pervasiveness and abundance worldwide.
Highlights
Reproductive plants frequently benefit from moving their seeds away from their immediate vicinity
Some of them quoted other authors to say that seeds are regurgitated during rumination (e.g., Krefting and Roe, 1949; Corlett, 1998), others alluded to indirect observations of “apparent” seed regurgitation by some species of ruminant (e.g., Jordano, 1987), and some others assumed seed spitting, for instance because they found undamaged seeds at the rumen of dead animals but never at the dung (e.g., Slater and du Toit, 2002)
A Brief History of Seed Spitting During Rumination As a matter of fact, the places where domestic ruminants lay down for rumination do appear frequently covered by spat seeds mixed with dung
Summary
Reproductive plants frequently benefit from moving their seeds away from their immediate vicinity. Such benefits include the increase of seed and seedling survival, enhanced germination, reduced sibling competition, increased gene flow, and the colonization of vacant habitats. Fruits are attractive for some other frugivores that kill seeds during ingestion and/or digestion, acting as seed predators. Given their strong masticatory system and the powerful microbial digestion inside their complex guts, mammalian ungulates, and those that are ruminants, have been frequently considered predators of the large-sized seeds characteristic of many woody plant species. Many authors consider that ungulates maximize nutritional intake from fruits by digesting the entire resource, including seeds (e.g., Bodmer, 1991)
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