European Seed Dispersal Interactions Across 400 Years

Over 400 years of data on seed dispersal interactions in Europe, compiled by Sara Beatriz Mendes. It contains over 11,000 recorded interactions between 1,902 plant and 455 animal species. The dataset evaluates information completeness across different disperser guilds, plant types, and dispersal mechanisms.

Use Cases

• Assessing research bias and information gaps across animal disperser guilds based on reported sample coverage.
• Studying the relative contributions of different dispersal mechanisms (endozoochory, epizoochory, synzoochory, myrmecochory) to ecosystem resilience.
• Analyzing the historical accumulation of ecological interaction data over a 400-year period.
• Comparing scientific perceptions of neglected dispersers with quantitative estimates of data coverage.

Strengths

• Over 11,000 recorded interactions between 1,902 plant and 455 animal species.
• Data spans a 400-year temporal range, providing a long-term perspective.
• Explicitly quantifies sample coverage for different disperser guilds, with specific percentages reported.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic and taxonomic bias inherent to the aggregated sources.

Provenance

Source

figshare

Collection Method

Aggregated from multiple research sources, likely including published literature.

Time Range

400 years

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-11 19:50:05; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Europe