Seed dispersal is a critical stage in the plant life cycle, and grasses have developed many methods by which to spread their seeds. Team Seed Dispersal, a subset of the Strömberg Lab, collects data on falling velocity, surface roughness, mass, and ecological information for seed dispersal structures (also called diaspores) to determine whether these structures are dispersed by wind, sticking to animals, or passing through the guts of animals. We are interested in whether grasses from tropical savannas use different methods of seed dispersal based on their ecology. We are collecting data on herbarium specimens from taxa that are commonly found in neotropical and paleotropical savannas and trying to see how different ecological factors can influence seed dispersal. For example, the Cerrados, a neotropical savanna, have more tree cover than the Serengeti, a paleotropical savanna, so we predict that wind dispersal will be less common in the Cerrados. On the other hand, the Serengeti has more large animals than the Cerrados, so the Serengeti may have more animal-mediated dispersal. There are many ways to visualize and evaluate data, especially since seed dispersal can be hard to quantify. That’s why Maria, a post-graduate in the Strömberg Lab, put together an app which allows users to compare different data in different ways. This app, coded in R using a program called Shiny, displays data Team Seed Dispersal has collected on neotropical and paleotropical savanna taxa. Users can change which variables to display and which kind of graph they would like to visualize them on, which can be a useful way to determine which results are interesting. You can visit the app here! Link to related Twitter thread
1 Comment
ñoño
2/16/2022 08:48:46 am
super cool! go Maria!!!!!
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