I am trying to track down research articles that address this question.
More specifically, experiments that address the magnitude of secondary seed removal from under adult conspecifics that are either (a) fruiting, or (b) not fruiting. Would one expect seed removal to be greater under a tree that is fruiting vs. a conspecifics that isn't fruiting (I would expect so...), and what of the effect of both fruiting hetero- and conspecifics in the local neighbourhood?
I think this problem depends on the scale of your experiment, animals you targets, and the inter-annual variation in phenology. Fallen seeds will also attract large ungulate's browsing and secondary seed predation, not only small rodents. Fine-scale experiment treatment may be within one ungulate's foraging range and affect the final results you want to reveal. Furthermore, the affects of rich year or lean year on seed predation ratio may be much more conspicuous than the hetero- or conspecifics treatments. Maybe you can refer to
Feer, F., and P.-M. Forget. 2002. Spatio-Temporal Variations in Post-Dispersal Seed Fate. Biotropica
Muñoz, A., R. Bonal, and M. Díaz. 2009. Ungulates, rodents, shrubs: interactions in a diverse Mediterranean ecosystem. Basic and Applied Ecology
Thanks Chiyu. I am interested in any kind of seed removal that happens once the seed has fallen/been dispersed from the parent tree.
The book edited by P. M. Forget, 2005, "Seed fate: predation, dispersal, and seedling establishment" can give an overview of this topic and field survey method. I'm also interested in it.
I attached a chapter from the book mentioned above. It addresses post-dispersal seed fate but not so much your original question of fruiting trees as seed predation magnets. I can't think of any papers that address that directly but many papers relating to the Janzen-Connell model will be useful. Also, look for papers on 'contagious dispersal' by Kwit etal and Schupp et al.
"I am trying to track down research articles that address this question."
nice of You... but what's the problem?
I want to know, all else equal, how predation of seeds in forest differs with respect to the presence and absence of fruiting conspecifics, or even heterospecifics.
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