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The Conversation USA

The Conversation USA

With fewer animals to spread their seeds, plants could have trouble adapting to climate change

  • Written by Evan Fricke, Faculty Fellow in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Rice University
imageA Bohemian waxwing eating mountain ash berries. Lisa Hupp, USFWS/Flickr

Picture a mature, broad-branched tree like an oak, maple or fig. How does it reproduce so that its offspring don’t grow up in its shadow, fighting for light?

The answer is seed dispersal. Plants have evolved many strategies for spreading their seeds away from the parent...

Read more: With fewer animals to spread their seeds, plants could have trouble adapting to climate change

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