In flowering plants, seed dispersal is the process by which the seeds generated by a plant fall away from it , so that the new plants, once developed, do not compete with the one that gave rise to them for resources such as light, space, water or soil nutrients.
Seed dispersal occurs in different ways.
Some plants have fruits that are palatable to animals , which eat them and then eliminate them with their feces; thus, they transport the seeds away from the parent plant, where the competition for resources is less and, therefore, they have a greater chance of developing.
In other cases, the fruits have spikes that get caught in the hair or feathers of animals , thereby transporting them away from the “mother” plant.
In other plants, the seeds fall into streams of water that carry them away from the parent plant.
Many times, the seeds are also dispersed by the wind . It is the agent that contributes the most to dispersion. This is what happens, for example, with dandelion seeds, which are attached to structures similar to hairs; Being lightweight, these structures float on air currents and fall away from the plant where they originated.