Water Dispersal

The transfer of seeds from a parent or mother plant to a different location is called “seed dispersal”. Seed dispersal allows the same plant species to grow in different areas. Seed dispersal helps reduce food, sunlight, water, and mineral competition between plants of the same species in the same zone. It can also grow in a variety of habitats.

There are two types depending on the seed dispersal. 

Seed dispersal through water is called hydrocolloid. The seeds of plants that grow in or near running water are usually dispersed by water. Common examples are coconut and lotus. These fruits and seeds have several adaptations for swimming in water. Coconut fruits have a light and fibrous fruit wall and are carried over long distances by seawater. Lotus has flat, spongy thalamus containing seeds. Kohai and mangrove trees are located on the banks of rivers and estuaries. Therefore, the seeds float on the surface of the water and the stream carries the seeds away.

Plant seeds growing in water are spread to water, but there are many other ways to play a part of water when dispersing seeds.  Plants growing by water often relied on water and transport their seeds. You can produce floating seeds, or it may be a thread that helps buoyant. Two tall trees, willow and silver birch are removed in the middle of Mouoland, as well as other trees, but along the process of Brook. Both of the light seeds that can be worn by wind and water can be very small, so you can colonize such isolated places. Lady’s gloves and bluebells often grow along streams. They both have light seeds that float. 

Tree seeds found on tropical beaches are often transported to the sea. They have a wood waterproof cover that allows them to swim in salt water for extended periods. Coconut is a well-known traveller, and the famous coco-de-mer is endemic to Seychelles but was known before its origin was known by the giant seeds launched on other tropical beaches. 

Mangroves are another famous tree on tropical beaches. Their seeds are unusual in that they can begin to germinate while on top of the mother plant and fall into the sea when they reach a length of about 1 foot. These “sticks” swim upright in the ocean and wait to be thrown to the beach to continue germination. 

Some tropical tree species can even be wiped out by ocean currents to reach half the coast of the world. Sea beans, the seed of Entada gigas, can be transported from home to the coasts of Europe on rivers in Africa, Australia and South America.

Seed dispersal has many implications for plant ecology and evolution. Species migration requires dispersal and has recently become an important factor in whether the species that humans transport to new habitats become invasive species. Spread is also predicted to play an important role in the emergence and maintenance of biodiversity. For example, the myrmecochory line contains more than twice as many species as the non-myrmecochory sister group, so myrmecochory increased the diversification rate of plant groups that evolved more than twice. Seed dispersal from parental organisms plays a central role in two important theories of how biodiversity is conserved in natural ecosystems, the Janzen-Connell hypothesis and accession constraints. Seed dispersal is essential to enable forest migration of flowering plants. It can be affected by the production of various fruit morphologies in plants, a phenomenon known as heterocarpy. The morphology of these fruits varies in size and shape, and the range of dispersion is also different, allowing seeds to be dispersed over different distances and adapted to different environments.