Fleshy fruits as a lifebelt for seeds and the potential polychory of two wetland trees of temperate Chilean forests

The seeds of fleshy-fruited species growing in aquatic environments fall into water, with or without their pericarp depending upon whether gravity or animals disperse the seeds, with consequences little explored for seed ecology and dispersal in wetlands. In this study, we evaluated the germination of seeds with and without fleshy pericarp after water exposure (from 7 to 90 days), timing of fruit flotation and germination percentage from within intact fruits of two fleshy-fruited Myrtaceae trees of the Chilean temperate forests, Luma apiculata and Blepharocalyx cruckshanksii. For both species, we found greater germination in flooded seeds with pericarp than without, maximum fruit flotation for about a month, although buoyancy was reduced faster in B. cruckshanksii, and seedling emergence from inside fruits occurred in a grater percentage in B. cruckshanksii. These results show that the fleshy pericarp protects seeds from negative water effects, allowing hydrochory and it does not impede germination. Thus, there is a potential advantage for seeds being dispersed with their fleshy cover in wetland habitats. We assert that these species have multiple dispersal mechanisms (polychory) operating in wetlands, with consequences for their dispersal and recruitment.