ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with the dispersal of plants by herbivorous animals. The fact that a plant grows on a spot of soil indicates that somehow a seed or other bit of germplasm arrived there and became established. Aspects of plant/animal interactions include plant/microbe associations, pollination, seed predation, seed dispersal, and herbivory. Among small mammals, birds, termites, and ants, numerous species gather and store plant disseminules in their nests and in other hiding places, usually small excavations in the soil. The seeds collected by harvester termites and stored in their nests may be exposed and planted by termite-eating mammals that destroy the nests. Animals spread plants by ingesting seeds at one location and egesting them at another. Dispersal of plants by animals and humans has a number of implications for management of rangelands. Wide distribution of seeds by animals was claimed by M. F. Willson et al to be of importance in understanding vegetational changes, especially on reclamation projects.
