Seed dispersal is the movement or transport of seeds away from the parent plant.

Plants have limited mobility and consequently rely upon a variety of dispersal vectors to transport their propagules, including both abiotic and biotic vectors. Seeds can be dispersed away from the parent plant individually or collectively, as well as dispersed in both space and time. The patterns of seed dispersal are determined in large part by the dispersal mechanism and this has important implications for the demographic and genetic structure of plant populations, as well as migration patterns and species interactions. There are five main modes of seed dispersal: gravity, wind, ballistic, water and by animals. Some plants are serotinous and only disperse their seeds in response to an environmental stimulus. It can be measured using seed traps.

Types of Seed Dispersal Wind

The wafer ash and kapok seeds are not brightly coloured. The seeds are very light. The wafer ash seeds are thin and flat. Kapok seeds have fluffy hairs around them.

These characteristics help the seeds to be dispersed by the wind. Other examples of seeds that are dispersed by the wind are the meranti, cotton plant, and lalang. The seeds are carried away to other places to germinate and grow

Water
A coconut fruit has a waxy surface. A waxy surface does not allow the fruit to get wet in water. A woody husk covering encloses the seed of the coconut fruit. The husk is able to trap air within it.

The coconut fruit is dispersed by water. Other examples of seeds are the water lily, mangrove, pong-pong and pandan. The fruits or seeds may travel for thousands of kilometers across seas and oceans before they germinate and grow on land.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Seed Dispersal

The dispersal advantage demonstrates the strategies plants have evolved to make sure sperm are delivered from one plant to another. For example, since many fruits are edible, animals and birds may play a role in increasing angiosperm seed dispersal. Pollinating animals are attracted to prominent and colorful flower petals. Similarly, modified fruits such as burrs may cling to animal hair, which can deposit seeds miles away. All of these strategies have helped angiosperms become the most dominant plant today by increasing their reproductive success. Seed dispersal is likely to have several benefits for plant species. First, seed survival is often higher away from the parent plant. This higher survival may result from the actions of densitydependent seed and seedling predators and pathogens, which often target the high concentrations of seeds beneath adults. Competition with adult plants may also be lower when seeds are transported away from their parent. Seed dispersal also allows plants to reach specific habitats that are favorable for survival, a hypothesis known as directed dispersal. For example, Ocotea endresiana (Lauraceae) is a tree species from Latin America which is dispersed by several species of birds, including the threewattled bellbird. Male bellbirds perch on dead trees in order to attract mates, and often defecate seeds beneath these perches where the seeds have a high chance of survival because of high light conditions and escape from fungal pathogens. In the case of fleshy-fruited plants, seed-dispersal in animal guts (endozoochory) often enhances the amount, the speed, and the asynchrony of germination, which can have important plant benefits.

Seeds dispersed by ants (myrmecochory) are not only dispersed to short distances but are also buried underground by the ants. These seeds can thus avoid adverse environmental effects such as fire or drought, reach nutrient-rich microsites and survive longer than other seeds. These features are peculiar to myrmecochory, which may thus provide additional benefits not present in other dispersal modes. Finally, at another scale, seed dispersal may allow plants to colonize vacant habitats and even new geographic regions

A disadvantage is that seeds may be susceptible to fungal infection, dessication, and insect damage