title: Long-distance dispersal to oceanic islands: success of plants with multiple diaspore specializations.
abstract: A great number of scientific papers claim that angiosperm diversification is manifested by an ample differentiation of diaspore traits favouring long-distance seed dispersal. Oceanic islands offer an ideal framework to test whether the acquisition of multiple sets of diaspore traits (syndromes) by a single species results in a wider geographic distribution. To this end, we performed floristic and syndrome analyses and found that diplochorous species (two syndromes) are overrepresented in the recipient flora of the Azores in contrast to that of mainland Europe, but not to mainland Portugal. An additional analysis of inter-island colonization showed a general trend of a higher number of islands colonized by species with a single syndrome (monochorous) and two syndromes than species with no syndrome (unspecialized). Nevertheless, statistical significance for differences in colonization is meagre in some cases, partially due to the low proportion of diplochorous species in Europe (244 of ∼10 000 species), mainland Portugal (89 of 2294 species), and the Azores (9 of 148 species), Canaries (17 of 387 lowland species) and Galápagos (18 of 313 lowland species). Contrary to expectations, this first study shows only a very marginal advantage for long-distance dispersal of species bearing multiple syndromes.
authors.affiliation: Real Jardín Botánico de Madrid (RJB-CSIC), 28014 Madrid, Spain vargas@rjb.csic.es.
authors.forename: Pablo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Vargas
authors.affiliation: Real Jardín Botánico de Madrid (RJB-CSIC), 28014 Madrid, Spain Island Ecology and Evolution Research Group (IPNA-CSIC), 38206 La Laguna, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain.
authors.forename: Yurena
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Arjona
authors.affiliation: Island Ecology and Evolution Research Group (IPNA-CSIC), 38206 La Laguna, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain.
authors.forename: Manuel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Nogales
authors.affiliation: Centre for Functional Ecology, Department of Life Sciences, University of Coimbra, 3000-456 Coimbra, Portugal.
authors.forename: Ruben H
authors.initials: RH
authors.lastname: Heleno
keywords: Anemochorous; diplochorous traits; endozoochorous; epizoochorous; insular colonization; thalassochorous