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

种子扩散是指不活动的植物在广泛的分布范围内扩大物种范围的过程。植物结出具有很高营养价值的果实，作为对运输它们的动物的奖励。动物将种子分散到远离它们的亲本植物的地方。这是避免亲本附近近亲繁殖的一个重要过程，包括通过与亲缘植物的种内竞争来逃避亲本周围幼苗的高死亡率。北方温带地区果树的果物候期与食果性鸟类的关系已有研究，但对东部古北极地区的鸟类-植物关系的研究较少。近年来，日本的许多植物生态学家和鸟类学家都对这一课题产生了兴趣。因此，我们组织了一个研究小组，并在这一特征中介绍了种子传播的最新进展。我们发表了25篇文章和3章的书籍。这些信息包括有关种子在东亚、古北极和热带地区传播的基本和重要信息。我们在日本的一些类型的森林中展示了植物类型和食果鸟类之间的关系。我们记录了研究区内多种鸟类，确定了主要的种子传播剂，并每年在各自的地方组织了5次种子传播研讨会。许多年轻的动植物关系研究人员齐聚一堂，进行了大量的讨论。我们认为这是我们研究的最重要的成功。

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.