ABSTRACT
Most ungerminated tree seed which escape animals are doomed to death and decay by microorganisms unless they germinate promptly. Germinants face a broad spectrum of potentially pathogenic and saprophytic microorganisms, mostly fungi. This chapter describes the modus operandi of several pathogens which kill seed before and/or during germination. Small mammals are voracious, and they are good at finding dispersed seed. A. Radvanyi's review of animal predation notes that a single Peromycus can eat about 1000 lodgepole pine or 2000 white spruce or 450 Douglas fir seed per night. However, the probability of establishment is frequently fixed not by the physical and chemical environment, but by predation, fatal kinds of parasitism, and sometimes just aging. For imbibed seed in a natural setting, there appears to exist a cellular repair system which can hold off the effects of aging—for a time.
