Global study of dynamics between phenology of fruits and frugivorous birds in changing environment.

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Seed dispersal is a process in which immobile plants expand the species range in a wide scale of the distribution. Plants bear fruits with high nutrient value as a reward to animals which transport them. Animals disperse the seeds far from their parent plants. It is an important process to avoid inbreeding around parent plant and includes escaping high mortality of seedling around the parent plant via intraspecific competition with their kin. As a result, most of the fruits have been adapted to dispersal by birds and other animals.The relationship between the fruiting phenology of fruited plants and frugivorous birds has been investigated in northern temperate region; however, we had not so much information on the bird-plant relationship in eastern paleoarctic region. Recently, many plant ecologists and ornithologists are bearing their interests to this subject in Japan. So, we organized a research team and introduce recent advances in studies of seed dispersal in this feature. We published 25 articles and 3 chapters of books. Those include essential and important information on seed dispersal in eastern paleoarctic and tropic Asia.We showed the relationships between plant types and frugivorous birds in a some types of forests in Japan. We recorded many species of birds in the study area, and identified main agents for seed dispersal.We also organized 5 symposium on the seed dispersal at respective place in each year. Many young researchers on plant-animal relationship gathered and discussed so much. We are thinking that it was the most important success for our research.