Habitat

Demography

Engineering

Ecology

Biology

Materials science

Operating system

Range (aeronautics)

Computer science

Defaunation

Food science

Mechanical engineering

Climate change

Rumen

Threatened species

Seed dispersal

Population

Sociology

Environmental science

Track (disk drive)

Composite material

Limiting

Seed dispersal syndrome

Fermentation

Biological dispersal

Ecosystem

Science

Seed dispersal in decline Most plant species depend on animals to disperse their seeds, but this vital function is threatened by the declines in animal populations, limiting the potential for plants to adapt to climate change by shifting their ranges. Using data from more than 400 networks of seed dispersal interactions, Fricke et al . quantified the changes in seed disposal function brought about globally by defaunation. Their analyses indicate that past defaunation has severely reduced long-distance seed dispersal, cutting by more than half the number of seeds dispersed far enough to track climate change. In addition, their approach enables the prediction of seed dispersal interactions using species traits and an estimation of how these interactions translate into ecosystem functioning, thus informing ecological forecasting and the consequences of animal declines. —AMS

The effects of defaunation on plants’ capacity to track climate change