{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,10]],"date-time":"2025-10-10T01:27:34Z","timestamp":1760059654615,"version":"build-2065373602"},"reference-count":53,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"13","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,6,26]],"date-time":"2025-06-26T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1750896000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100003339","name":"CSIC","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["PIE 202030E247","PID2020-112774GB-I00\/AEI\/10.13039\/501100011033","PDJ\u2014n\u00b0 150887\/2022-1","#327013"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["PIE 202030E247","PID2020-112774GB-I00\/AEI\/10.13039\/501100011033","PDJ\u2014n\u00b0 150887\/2022-1","#327013"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100003339","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"name":"Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovaci\u00f3n","award":["PIE 202030E247","PID2020-112774GB-I00\/AEI\/10.13039\/501100011033","PDJ\u2014n\u00b0 150887\/2022-1","#327013"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["PIE 202030E247","PID2020-112774GB-I00\/AEI\/10.13039\/501100011033","PDJ\u2014n\u00b0 150887\/2022-1","#327013"]}]},{"name":"CNPq","award":["PIE 202030E247","PID2020-112774GB-I00\/AEI\/10.13039\/501100011033","PDJ\u2014n\u00b0 150887\/2022-1","#327013"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["PIE 202030E247","PID2020-112774GB-I00\/AEI\/10.13039\/501100011033","PDJ\u2014n\u00b0 150887\/2022-1","#327013"]}]},{"name":"NSERC Discovery","award":["PIE 202030E247","PID2020-112774GB-I00\/AEI\/10.13039\/501100011033","PDJ\u2014n\u00b0 150887\/2022-1","#327013"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["PIE 202030E247","PID2020-112774GB-I00\/AEI\/10.13039\/501100011033","PDJ\u2014n\u00b0 150887\/2022-1","#327013"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Plants"],"abstract":"<jats:p>There are few studies on the extent to which waterfowl select plant food compared with what is available in wetland ecosystems. We used a new dataset on the presence of seeds in the alimentary canal or feces to identify flowering plant species whose seeds are ingested by North American ducks or geese. These data are a proxy for dispersal interactions because an important fraction of ingested seeds survives gut passage and is dispersed by endozoochory. We compared the plant traits of species whose seeds were ingested with those of species on the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Wetland Plants List (NWPL). Using a global dataset on plant form and function and chi-squared tests, we compared four categorical traits (moisture requirements, growth form, plant height, and seed mass) between species whose seeds are ingested by North American ducks and geese with the NWPL. Our analyses identified significant differences between the trait distributions of plants whose seeds were ingested by waterfowl guilds and those of the NWPL. Geese and ducks (except whistling ducks) ingested more aquatic and semiaquatic plant species than expected from the NWPL. All guilds except sea ducks ingested more herbaceous graminoids and fewer shrubs or trees than expected. Diving ducks interacted with fewer of the taller plants (&gt;5 m) than expected, but otherwise plant height distributions did not differ from those expected. All waterfowl guilds ingested more species of intermediate seed size (1\u201310 mg) and fewer species of the smallest (&lt;0.1 mg) or largest (&gt;100 mg) size categories than expected. These results help to explain the role of the long-distance dispersal of seeds by migratory waterfowl in plant biogeography and how plant distributions are likely to respond to global change.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/plants14131964","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,6,26]],"date-time":"2025-06-26T11:15:23Z","timestamp":1750936523000},"page":"1964","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Trait-Based Selection of Seeds Ingested and Dispersed by North American Waterfowl"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"14","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-9738-0270","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Bia A.","family":"Almeida","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Conservation Biology and Global Change, Estaci\u00f3n Biol\u00f3gica de Do\u00f1ana (EBD), Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientif\u00edcas (CSIC), 41092 Sevilla, Spain"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-3049-1763","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Mihai","family":"Costea","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Biology, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON N2L 3C5, Canada"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Giliandro G.","family":"Silva","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Graduate Program in Biology of Continental Aquatic Environments, Federal University of Rio Grande\u2014FURG, Rio Grande 96203-900, Brazil"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Leonardo","family":"Maltchik","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Graduate Program in Biology of Continental Aquatic Environments, Federal University of Rio Grande\u2014FURG, Rio Grande 96203-900, Brazil"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Susan E. W.","family":"De La Cruz","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"U.S. Geological Survey, Western Ecological Research Center, San Francisco Bay Estuary Field Station, Moffett Field, CA 94035-0158, USA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-0217-5907","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"John Y.","family":"Takekawa","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Suisun Resource Conservation District, 2544 Grizzly Island Road, Suisun City, CA 94585-9539, USA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-1268-4951","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Andy J.","family":"Green","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Conservation Biology and Global Change, Estaci\u00f3n Biol\u00f3gica de Do\u00f1ana (EBD), Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientif\u00edcas (CSIC), 41092 Sevilla, Spain"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,6,26]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"29","DOI":"10.3996\/102010-JFWM-038","article-title":"The food preference paradigm: A review of autumn\u2013winter food use by North American dabbling ducks (1900\u20132009)","volume":"2","author":"Callicut","year":"2011","journal-title":"J. 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