Seed traps or collectors are a great way to sample seeds dispersed by animals. You may want to combine this sampling with more directed ways by using line transects and looking for freshly-dispersed seeds in scats directly on the ground. This may prove useful with rare species or when the activity of birds is limited. Typically when you set seed traps you get a very high number of them not sampling any seeds. Also seed traps do not perform very well for sampling open ground or on rocky surfaces.

There are many different types of seed traps you may try; which one to use depends on habitat, vegetation physiognomy etc. The best advice I can give to you is protect the content of the trap from seed predators, i.e., by using a mesh wire to cover the tray you are using to collect the seeds. Here you have some references that might be helpful:

- Burrows, C. (1987) Seed Trapping in Lowland Forest. New Zealand Journal of Ecology, 10, 167–167.

- Burrows, C.J. (1994) Seed Trapping in Ahuriri-Summit-Bush-Scenic-Reserve, Port-Hills, Western Banks Peninsula, 1985-86. New Zealand Journal Of Botany, 32, 183–215.

- Erschbamer, B., Kneringer, E. & Schlag, R.N. (2001) Seed rain, soil seed bank, seedling recruitment, and survival of seedlings on a glacier foreland in the Central Alps. Flora, 196, 304–312.

- Garcia, C., Jordano, P., Arroyo, J.M. & Godoy, J.A. (2009) Maternal genetic correlations in the seed rain: effects of frugivore activity in heterogeneous landscapes. Journal of Ecology, 97, 1424–1435.

- Johnson, C.K. & West, N.E. (1988) Laboratory Comparisons of 5 Seed-Trap Designs for Dry, Windy Environments. Canadian Journal Of Botany-Revue Canadienne De Botanique, 66, 346–348.

- Jones, J.R. (1967) A Modification of 1-Foot-Square Wire Seed Trap. Journal of Forestry, 65, 490–&.

- Kollmann, J. & Goetze, D. (1997) Notes on seed traps in terrestrial plant communities. Flora, 192, 1–10.

- Larsson, E.L. & Molau, U. (2001) Snowbeds trapping seed rain - a comparison of methods. Nordic Journal of Botany, 21, 385–392.

- Middleton, B.A. (1995) Sampling Devices for the Measurement of Seed Rain and Hydrochory in Rivers. Bulletin Of The Torrey Botanical Club, 122, 152–155.

- Page, M.J., Newlands, L. & Eales, J. (2002) Effectiveness of three seed-trap designs. Australian Journal Of Botany, 50, 587–594.

- Pielaat, A., Lewis, M.A., Lele, S. & de-Camino-Beck, T. (2006) Sequential sampling designs for catching the tail of dispersal kernels. Ecological Modelling, 190, 205–222.

- Robledo-Arnuncio, J.J. & Garcia, C. (2007) Estimation of the seed dispersal kernel from exact identification of source plants. Molecular Ecology, 16, 5098–5109.

- Schott, G.W. (1995) A Seed Trap for Monitoring the Seed Rain in Terrestrial Communities. Canadian Journal Of Botany-Revue Canadienne De Botanique, 73, 794–796.

- Skarpaas, O., Shea, K. & Bullock, J. (2005) Optimizing dispersal study design by Monte Carlo simulation. Journal of Applied Ecology, 42, 731–739.

- Stevenson, P.R. & Vargas, I.N. (2008) Sample size and appropriate design of fruit and seed traps in tropical forests. Journal of Tropical Ecology, 24.

- Werner, P.A. (1975) Seed Trap for Determining Patterns of Seed Deposition in Terrestrial Plants. Canadian Journal Of Botany-Revue Canadienne De Botanique, 53, 810–813.

- Wolters, M., Geertsema, J., Chang, E.R., Veeneklaas, R.M., Carey, P.D. & Bakker, J.P. (2004) Astroturf seed traps for studying hydrochory. Functional Ecology, 18, 141–147.

Good luck with your projects!!!

Hi, 

Is possible to use little plastic bottles that are used for genetic or laboratory, try to take care when u collect from the ground or the place where the faeces are dropped.

Good luck!

What I kid is that put one layer new wax paper at the bottom of shoebox And keep bird in the shoe box for 10 to 15 minutes. Then collect fecal sample. Trash the used wax paper and Apply new wax paper for next bird. That's what I did for my dissertation.

Liu and Swanson 2016 physiological and ecological measures of stopover habitat quality for migrant bird in natural riparian corridor woodlands and anthropogenic wood lots southeastern South Dakota. Dissertation chapter four.

The problem with seed traps is that they cover a very small proportion of the total area. If it does not rain, walking transects looking for fresh feces may work with some species, but I'd try it first. Or you could walk a day after rain and see what has been deposited in the last 24 hours. I have used huge sheets of plastic sheeting overnight for fruit bats, which usually defecate small seeds while flying, but I think it might be too conspicuous in daytime to work for birds.

I used plastic buckets with holes for drainage and attached them to the ground with stainless steel pegs. Trapping area was about 6% of the canopy area.

Andrew :-)