Savannah River Ecology Laboratory

In collaboration with Dr. James Beasley at the Savanna River Ecological Lab (SREL), Dr. Lashley and I designed a project building on our work at NRI and further exploring death's role in seed dispersal. In addition to carrion influencing arriving seed rain or seed banks, perishing animals may themselves be dispersal vectors. In the Fall of 2020, we added seeds to food items that SREL employees fed to captive feral pigs. I collected these seeds from wild plants, a subset of which I sprayed with a nitrogen isotope. The plants incorporate the nitrogen into seed tissue, and this nitrogen is detectable in the subsequent seedling. By detecting this isotope, we can be sure plants emerging from carrion are not from the seed bank or seed rain but are instead seeds that were part of our treatment. First, we collected the scat after seeds passed. Then, SREL employees dispatched pigs before the next round of seeds passed. By placing these pigs and the scat in the field, we can discern how dispersal inside carrion differs from dispersal via the gut passage.