1.2 Frugivore movement & behaviour
Over half of woody plant species globally, and up to 90% of tropical tree species, require animals to disperse their seeds (Howe & Smallwood, 1982). Animal-mediated seed (or diaspore) dispersal can take many forms, including endozoochory (carried within an animal), epizoochory (attached to the outside of a disperser), and synzoochory (intentionally carried, mostly in the mouth). The way seeds are transported can often help predict the fate of the seed (Nascimento et al, 2020), but the decisions that animals make relating to movements before, during and after interacting with fruit ultimately drive the dynamics of animal dispersed plant populations (Morales et al, 2013). These decisions are shaped by landscape composition, animal traits, diet preferences and behaviours (Baguette & Van Dyck, 2007). Even decisions that are not directly related to foraging, e.g., use of leks, latrines or roosting, can incidentally impact the deposition of seeds through altered movement paths (Sasal & Morales, 2013).
Recent studies call for animal movement and behaviour to be better integrated with seed dispersal studies to enable researchers to fully understand the processes that determine seed rain (CĂ´rtes & Uriarte, 2013; Borah & Beckman, 2022) and to advance a mechanistic understanding of animal-mediated seed dispersal. For example, interdisciplinary collaborations linking plant demography and movement ecology could use animal tracking studies to determine the precise location of seed deposition and to describe the dispersal potential of different frugivorous animal species (Borah & Beckman, 2022; Dent & Estrada-Villegas, 2021).