Can traits allowing synchrony between seed presentation and effective partners constitute a crucial pre-adaptation for the evolution of plant-animal mutualisms? Also, how does this specifically increase seed protection from predators?
Some of the work on mast fruiting might be of interest; particularly studies looking at nomadic and resident seed predators.
Article Experimental Tests of the Spatiotemporal Scale of Seed Preda...
Article Vertebrate Responses to Spatiotemporal Variation in Seed Pro...
"The question you ask determines the answer you get." You have asked, "Can traits allowing synchrony between seed presentation and effective partners constitute a crucial pre-adaptation for the evolution of plant-animal mutualisms? ", which I believe is going to lead to an unanswerable conundrum, since you base your question on the assumption that there are 'traits' "allowing" synchrony between seed presentation and effective partners.
About your second question, yes, if there is a specific seed disperser working in close coordination with the seed producer, it should reduce seed predation, in the sense that there is some medium to disperse the seed as soon as it is mature and presumably the seed disperser will take steps to ensure that it obtains full benefit of the fruit or whatever is the package of the seed..
I agree with Peter! Your question should be broken down. You should firstly ask: Do fruit traits allow synchrony between seed presentation and potential partners? Also, I would avoid asking about 'pre-adaptations for evolution' because it is supposition, and at best, you can only make general non-provable statements about evolution!
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