QUEENS’ COLLEGE INDORE

SESSION :– 2022-23
SUBJECT: – BIOLOGY
TOPIC –
SUBMITTED TO :-
PRATIBHA NAIR MA’AM
SUBMITTED BY :-
SANSKRITI JAIN
CLASS – XII B
CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that ‘Sanskriti Jain’
student of class XII B ‘Biology’ has
successfully completed their Biology
project on ‘ Dispersal of seeds’ under
the guidance of ‘Pratibha Nair Ma’am’.

-------------------------- -------------------------
DECLARATION
I hereby declare that the project work
entitled ‘DISPERSAL OF SEEDS’
submitted to ‘ Pratibha Nair Ma’am’ , is
a project report of the work done by
me under the guidance of my biology
teacher. This project is submitted in
partial fulfillment for CBSE Board.
The information submitted is true and
original to best of my knowledge.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to express my special
thanks of gratitude to my teacher
Pratibha Nair Ma’am , who gave me the
golden opportunity to do this
wonderful project of ‘biology’ on
‘Dispersal of seeds’ . I came to know
about so many new things, I am really
thankful to them.
Secondly I would also like to thank my
parents and friends who also helped
me a lot in finalizing this project
within limited time frame.

Sanskriti Jain
XII B Biology
Seed dispersal is the way seeds get from the parent
plant to a new place. “Dispersal” means to spread or
scatter. The process of scattering of fruits and seeds to
distant places away om their parent is called dispersal
on dessemination. Plants can not move after they have
put down roots. It is an evolutionary advantage to get
their seeds away from the parent plant. If the seeds
take root nearby they will compete with each other
and the parent plant. A species is more likely to
survive when its members are widely spread. This is
because local disasters still leave plants in other
places.
It provides the new plants better chances of obtaining
water, nutrients, lights and space thereby enabling
them to have a better start in Life.
The fruits and seeds develop many devices for better
dispersal through different agencies.
The principle agencies that aid in the dispersal of
fruits and seeds are wind (anemochary), water
(hydrochory) and animals including man (zoochory).
Besides, some plants show self dispersal by explosive
mechanism (autochory).
The dispersal through the agency of animals in
considered as the best and most successful method.
Dispersal thorough agency of animals is considered as
the best and most successful method. If the seeds are
dispersed by being eaten, it is advantageous for them
to be nutritious and good to eat. So pores, seeds and
fruits may get dispersed mechanically or by animals :
1.Mechanical means :
 Spores and seeds dispersed by wind are light, and
get blown easily. An extra step is when the spores
or seeds are blown out forcibly.
 Spores and seeds may be fired out by force in
some cases.
 Seeds and fruits dispersed by water can float.
2. Zoological means :
 Many fruits are eaten by animals and the seeds are
dropped after the fruit is digested.
 Some fruits are carried on the fur of mammals.
Dispersal of seeds and fruits is quite interesting
subject of natural phenomenon and hence the study of
dispersal of seeds by various agencies has been
selected for the present project.
BENEFITS OF SEED DISPERSAL :
Seed dispersal is likely to have several benefits for
plant species.
1. Seed survival is often higher away from the parent
plant. This higher survival may result from the actions
of density-dependent seed and seedling predators and
pathogens, which often target the high concentrations
of seeds beneath adults. Competition with adult plants
may also be lower when seeds are transported away
from their parent.
Seed dispersal also allows plants to reach specific
habitats that are favorable for survival, a hypothesis
known as directed dispersal. Male bellbirds perch on
dead trees in order to attract mates, and often defecate
seeds beneath these perches where the seeds have a
high chance of survival because of high light
conditions and escape from fungal pathogens.
2. In the case of fleshy-fruited plants, seed-dispersal in
animal guts (endozoochory) often enhances the
amount, the speed, and the asynchrony of germination,
which can have important plant benefits.
3.Seeds dispersed by ants (myrmecochory) are not
only dispersed short distances but are also buried
underground by the ants. These seeds can thus avoid
adverse environmental effects such as fire or drought,
reach nutrient-rich microsites and survive longer than
other seeds.
4. These features are peculiar to myrmecochory, which
may thus provide additional benefits not present in
other dispersal modes.
5. Finally, at another scale, seed dispersal may allow
plants to colonize vacant habitats and even new
geographic regions.
TYPES OF DISPERSAL
Seed dispersal sometime splits into Autochory (when
dispersal is attained using the plants own means) and
Allochory (when obtained through external means).
AUTOCHORY
GRAVITY
Barochory or the plant use gravity for dispersal is a
simple means of achieving seed dispersal. The effect of
gravity on heavier fruits causes them to fall from the
plant when ripe. Fruits exhibiting this type of dispersal
include apples, coconuts and passion fruit and those
with harder shells (which often roll away from the
plant to gain more distance). Gravity dispersal also
allows for later transmission by water or animal.
Two other types of autochory are ballochory (the seed
is forcefully ejected by dehiscence and squeezing) and
herpochory(the seed crawls by means of trichomes
and changes in humidity).
ALLOCHORY
WIND
Wind dispersal of dandelion seeds Entada
phaseoloides – Hydrochory
Wind dispersal (anemochory) is one of the more
primitive means of dispersal. Wind dispersal can take
on one of two primary forms: seeds can float on the
breeze or alternatively, they can flutter to the ground.
The classic examples of these dispersal mechanisms
include dandelions, which have a feathery pappus
attached to their seeds and can be dispersed long
distances, and maples, which have winged seeds
(samara) and flutter to the ground. An important
constraint on wind dispersal is the need for abundant
seed production to maximise the likelihood of a seed
landing in a site suitable for germination. However,
limited wind in its habitat prevents the seeds to
successfully disperse away from its parents, resulting
in clusters of population.
Reliance on wind dispersal is common among many
weedy or ruderal species.
WATER (HYDROCHORY)
Many aquatic (water) and some terrestrial (ground)
plant species use hydrochory, or seed dispersal
through water. Seeds can travel for extremely long
distances, depending on the specific mode of water
dispersal. This is because some fruits are waterproof
and can float.
The water lily is an example of such a plant. Water
lilies flowers make a fruit that floats in the water for a
while and then drops down to the bottom to take root
on the floor of the pond.
 The seeds of palm trees can also be dispersed by
water. If they grow near oceans, the seeds can be
transported by ocean currents over long distances,
allowing the seeds to be dispersed as far as other
continents.
Mangrove trees live right in the water. Their seeds fall
from the tree and grow root as soon as they touch any
kind of soil. During low tide, they might fall in soil
instead of water and start growing right where they
fall. If the water level is high, they can be carried far
away from where they fell.
A special review for oceanic waters hydrochory can be
seen at oceanic dispersal.

EXXPLOSIVE ACTION
Some fruits can throw their seeds away when they are
ripe. This is a type of rapid plant movement, where the
fruits is thrown from a little ‘machine’.
Pea pods often use mechanical dispersal. When the
seeds are ready, the pod dries up. When the pod dries,
the inside of the pod dries faster than the outside. This
makes the pod twist inside, suddenly splitting open
violently, rolling into a little spiral. When tis roll
happens, it makes the seeds fly out of the pod in all
directions.
Impatiens – called ‘touch me not’ or ‘ jewel weeds’ – is
a large genus of flowering plants. When the seeds are
ripe and ready, the dried fruit becomes a trigger.
When an animal or human touches the plant, it bursts
open and sprays seeds everywhere. If the ground is
wet, the seeds can germinate right where they land,
they can also stick to the creature that made the
capsule burst open. This can help them be carried off
to a new place.
When the seeds are ready, it opens with a loud “POP!”
sound. There are hundreds of other fruits that use
mechanical dispersal.

ANIMALS (ZOOCHORY)
The small hooks on the surface of a bur enable
attachment to animal fur for dispersion. Animals can
disperse plant seeds in several ways, all named
zoochory. Seeds can be transported on the outside of
vertebrate animals (mostly mammals), a process
known as epizoochory. Plant species transported
externally by animals can have a variety of adaptations
for dispersal, including adhesive mucus, and a variety
of hooks, spines and barbs. The small hooks on the
surface of a bur enable attachment to animal fur for
dispersion.
However, epizoochory is a relatively rare dispersal
syndrome for plants as a whole; the percentage of
plant species with seeds adapted for transport on the
outside of animals is estimated to be below 5%.
Seed dispersal via ingestion by vertebrate animals
(mostly birds and mammals), or endozoochory, is the
dispersal mechanism for most tree species.
Endozoochory is generally a coevolved mutualistic
relationship in which a plant surrounds seeds with an
edible, nutritious fruit as a good food for animals that
consume it. Birds and mammals are the most
important seed dispersers, but a wide variety of other
animals, including turtles and fish, can transport
viable seeds.
Seed predators, which include many rodents (such as
squirrels) and some birds (such as jays) may also
disperse seeds by hoarding the seeds in hidden caches.
The seeds in caches are usually well-protected from
other seed predators and if left uneaten will grow into
new plants. In addition, rodents may also disperse
seeds via seed spitting due to the presence of
secondary metabolites in ripe fruits.
For example – dung beetles are known to disperse
seeds from clumps of feces in the process of collecting
dung to feed their larvae.
Seed dispersal by ants (myrmecochory) is a dispersal
mechanism of many shrubs of the southern
hemisphere or understorey herbs of the northern
hemisphere. Seeds of Myrmecochorous plants have a
lipid rich attachment called the elaiosome, which
attracts ants. Ants carry seed into their colonies, feed
the elaiosome to their larvae and discard the
otherwise intact seed in an underground chamber.
Myrmecochory is a coevolved mutualistic relationship
between plants and seed – disperser ants.
Other types of zoochory are chiropterochory (by bats),
malacochory (by molluscs, mainly terrestrial snails),
ornithochory (by birds) and saurochory (by non-bird
sauropsids).
HUMANS (ANTHROPOCHORY)
Dispersal by humans (anthropochory) used to be seen
as a form of dispersal by animals. Recent research
points out that human dispersers differ from animal
dispersers by a much higher mobility based on the
technical means of human transport.
Dispersal by humans on the one hand may act on large
geographical scales and lead to invasive species. On
the other hand, dispersal by humans also acts on
smaller, regional scales and drives the dynamics of
existing biological populations. Humans may disperse
seeds by many various means and some surprisingly
high distances have been repeatedly measured.
Examples are: dispersal on human clothes (up to 250
 

m), on shoes (up to 5 km) or by cars (regularly ~

250m, singles cases > 100 km).
CONSEQUENCES OF SEED DISPERSAL:
Seed dispersal has many consequences for the ecology
and evolution of plants. Dispersal is necessary for
species migrations, and in recent time dispersal ability
is an important factor in whether or not a species
transported to a new habitat by humans will become
an invasive species. It also play a major role in the
origin and maintenance of species diversity.
Dispersal of seeds away from the parent organism has
a central role in two major theories for how
biodiversity is maintained in natural ecosystems. Seed
dispersal is essential in allowing forest migration of
flowering plants.
 the speed and direction of wind are highly influential
in the dispersal process and in turn the deposition
patterns of floating seeds in the stagnant water bodies.
The transportation of seeds is led by the wind
direction. This effects colonization situated on the
banks of a river or to wetlands adjacent to streams
relative to the distinct wind directions. The wind
dispersal process can also effect connections between
water bodies.