Zoochory (the dispersal of seeds by animals) is pretty important for a lot of plant species. Many plants have evolved to depend on it, and it allows them to get their seeds from A to B, especially over long distances. When plants no longer have their animal buddies to move their seeds around, they aren’t going to be going anywhere fast.

With an uptick in human induced extinctions and the general movement of animals in response to climate change (who at least have the option to pack up their things and move to where the grass is greener), a lot of plants could end up getting left behind. This means that not only are they losing out on the normal dispersal processes but they’re also missing out on a potential ride to more suitable areas as their habitat conditions begin to decline – a bit of a double whammy really.

Read More: The effects of defaunation on plants’ capacity to track climate change

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Tanya Strydom is a PhD student at the Université de Montréal, mostly focusing on how we can use machine learning and artificial intelligence in ecology. Current research interests include (but are not limited to) predicting ecological networks, the role species traits and scale in ecological networks, general computer (and maths) geekiness, and a (seemingly) ever growing list of side projects. Tweets (sometimes related to actual science) can be found @TanyaS_08.