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

种子传播是指不动植物在大范围内扩大物种分布范围的过程。植物结出高营养价值的果实，作为对运输它们的动物的奖励。动物把种子散布在远离它们的母体植物的地方。通过种内竞争避免亲本周围的近亲繁殖，避免亲本周围幼苗的高死亡率是一个重要的过程。在北方温带地区，人们对有果植物的结果物候与食果鸟类的关系进行了研究，而在古北极东部地区，有关鸟类与植物关系的研究较少。近年来，日本许多植物生态学家和鸟类学家对这一课题产生了浓厚的兴趣。因此，我们组织了一个研究小组，并介绍了在这一功能的种子传播的研究进展。我们发表了25篇文章和3本书。这些资料包括了古北极东部和亚洲热带地区种子传播的基本和重要信息。在研究区记录了多种鸟类，确定了种子传播的主要媒介，并每年在不同地点组织了5次种子传播学术研讨会。许多年轻的植物与动物关系研究者聚集在一起，讨论了很多。我们认为这是我们研究中最重要的成功。

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.