P. E, Weiss. 
23 
THE DISPERSAL OF FRUITS AND SEEDS BY ANTS. 
By F. E. Weiss, 
Professor of Botany in the Victoria University of Manchester. 
[Text-Fig. 2]. 
B OTH to those who are interested in the biology of plants and 
to those engaged in the study of plant ecology, Sernander’s 
“ Entwurf einer Monographic der Europaischen Myrmekochoren 1 ,” 
will be a welcome source of information. Already in an earlier 
Swedish publication 2 (with German summary) Sernander had 
distinguished three ways which animals might aid in the dispersal 
of seeds and fruits. If feeding on succulent fruits they pass the 
seeds through the alimentary canal, he applies the name of 
endozoic to the method /of distribution, while he uses the term 
epizoic for the dispersal of fruits which adhere by means of hooks 
or sticky glands to passing animals. A third method of dispersal 
in which animals intentionally collect seeds or fruits which they 
may either let fall on the way or carry to their nests Sernander 
designates as synzoic. As instances of this method he cites the 
carrying off of nuts and other fruits by certain rodents, and 
particularly the transportation of small fruits and seeds by various 
species of ants. It is to a thorough investigation of this latter 
agency that the recent monograph, running to some 400 quarto 
pages, is devoted. To describe this particular case of synzoic 
distribution, Sernander uses the term myrmecochorous (j«.t;pp}£ 
= an ant; x w P *uj = I wander), a term independently used by 
Beguinot and Traversa 3 in the same sense. 
After referring to some of the more or less well-known instances 
of the dispersal of seeds by ants, such as the observations of 
Moggridge 4 and Lubbock 5 on the seeds of the violet, of Lundstrdm 6 
1 Kungl. Svenska Vetenskapsakademiens Handlingar. Bd. 41. 
No. 7. Uppsala 1906. With 11 Plates and 29 Text-figures. 
2 Den skandinaviska vegetationens spridningsbiologi. Uppsala 
1901. 
3 Nov. Giornale Botanico Ital. Fireinze, November, 1905. 
4 Moggridge, J. Tr. Harvesting Ants and Trapdoor Spiders. 
London, 1873. 
6 Lubbock, Sir John. Ants, Bees and Wasps. 4th Edition. 
London, 1882. 
G Lundstrdm, A. N. Pflanzenbiologische Studien II. Die Anpassung 
der Pflanzen an Thierc. Nova Acta Soc. Sc. Upsala, Ser. 3, 
Vol. XIII. 1887. 
