identifier	taxonID	type	CVterm	format	language	title	description	additionalInformationURL	UsageTerms	rights	Owner	contributor	creator	bibliographicCitation
4B42CF77FF8F5B41FF511A2CFD200441.text	4B42CF77FF8F5B41FF511A2CFD200441.taxon	http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/Text	http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/SPMInfoItems#GeneralDescription	text/html	en	Gone	<div><p>Gone with the wind</p><p>Sometimes, plants are moved across land by air currents. Some small invertebrates are associated with them and are transferred in this way also.</p><p>In 1981–1990, I studied the habitats of weevils in Southern Ukraine. On the shores of the Sea of Azov, dry stems of the sea-kale Crambe spp. were carried away by wind to a distance of some 1.5 km from the sea coast where they had vegetated. Inside these stems, I found live adults (or, less frequently, pupae) of the weevil Lixus canescens (Figure 3). Notably, its larvae build their pupal chamber in the root crown or near it. Presumably, this facilitates the detachment of stems by gusts of wind. It cannot be excluded that other inhabitants of the aboveground part of Crambe spp. (Korneyev et al. 2015) are also sometimes dispersed inside the plant by air currents.</p><p>In general, the tumbleweed strategy is based on some specific properties of the plants that use it. The above-ground parts of Crambe and some other plants contain high concentrations of phytotoxins. They are accumulated in the ground under the plants and inhibit the germination of all seeds, including those of the plants themselves. The toxins retain their activity for a long period (Grodzinskii 2016). In other cases, the accumulation of the dead organic matter inhibits the natural regeneration of plants mechanically, and ‘self-cleaning’ of the parent plot of land is required (Alyokhin 1986). In any case, displacement is a necessity for the ripe seeds of a new crop. However, this may also be beneficial for the insects transported in the stems. The tumbleweed moves the insects away from the place where seeds of their host plants cannot germinate. This may give rise to a new plant population and increase the survival chances of new insect generations. Dispersal by tumbleweed is common for some endobionts (Table 4).</p><p>In deserts, some small and fragile gall gnats ( Diptera) are dispersed by winds inside dry fruits of host plants, where they are possibly safe from extreme heat (Beknazarova 1989). Both air currents and gravity are active dispersal vectors for the invertebrates living in the pods and ripe samaras of maples (Figure 4).</p></div>	https://treatment.plazi.org/id/4B42CF77FF8F5B41FF511A2CFD200441	Public Domain	No known copyright restrictions apply. See Agosti, D., Egloff, W., 2009. Taxonomic information exchange and copyright: the Plazi approach. BMC Research Notes 2009, 2:53 for further explanation.		Plazi	Volovnik, Semyon V.	Volovnik, Semyon V. (2025): Phytochory - the dispersal of animals by terrestrial and aquatic plants. Journal of Natural History 59 (21 - 24): 1469-1539, DOI: 10.1080/00222933.2025.2475536, URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/00222933.2025.2475536
4B42CF77FFA55B6EFF511EAAFB9B0070.text	4B42CF77FFA55B6EFF511EAAFB9B0070.taxon	http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/Text	http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/SPMInfoItems#GeneralDescription	text/html	en	Triaenodes fly	<div><p>To fly or not to fly ?</p><p>The process of flying requires large and strong wings, powerful muscles, or long and thick hairs for the passive aeroplanktonic journey (like those of some caterpillars and larvae of scale insects). Nevertheless, the whole life cycle of some flightless insects occurs on free-floating plants (Table 16).</p><p>Such wingless animals as soil nematodes are able to perform short (1 cm) seasonal migrations, up to a metre per year. But if they are inside the fragments of subterranean stems (rhizomes), they are likely to travel a distance greater than 100 km owing to wind and waves (De La Peña et al. 2011). Thousands of semi-aquatic insect species disperse mainly as winged adults (dragonflies, stoneflies, numerous beetles, bugs and dipterans). However, owing to phytochory their water-dwelling larvae have additional possibilities for expansion, especially in lotic freshwater systems. A lot of them are transported by free-floating aquatic plants (Center et al. 1999; Harms and Grodowitz 2009; Pavan 2010). Furthermore, 60–90% of immatures of shore flies Hydrellia sp. that developed in the tissues of floating plants are infested with parasitoids (Deonier 1971). It can be expected that parasitoids drift within plants as well. It thus follows that wingless immatures provide additional chances to disperse.</p><p>Flightless passengers are common in coastal and island habitats. Seventeen of the 19 weevil species on the Haida Gwaii archipelago (North Pacific) are incapable of flight and some of them are associated with wood. It seems to be true that rafting played an important role in their colonisation of islands (Anderson 1988b). It has been experimentally shown that the eggs and larvae of the wingless weevil Pachyrhynchus jitanasaius can disperse from one island to another inside fruits of their host plant (Yeh et al. 2018). Additionally, the eggs of flightless Pachyrhynchus weevils can be transported by digestion in some birds (Lin et al. 2021). Similarly, floating wood, seeds and leaves of terrestrial plants and marine kelps transport fragments of colonies of Bryozoa (Willan 1979; Wood et al. 2006), and this is especially important for those lacking free statoblasts as ‘dormant bodies’.</p><p>Therefore, invertebrates with little potential for active migration can partially compensate for this via phytochory. It is the only method of long-distance dispersal for wingless invertebrates. Due to phytochory, bad fliers or swimmers, and flightless or sedentary invertebrates, can escape from density-dependent or distance-dependent mortality (Goldberg and Trewick 2011; Vander Wall and Beck 2012, and references therein).</p></div>	https://treatment.plazi.org/id/4B42CF77FFA55B6EFF511EAAFB9B0070	Public Domain	No known copyright restrictions apply. See Agosti, D., Egloff, W., 2009. Taxonomic information exchange and copyright: the Plazi approach. BMC Research Notes 2009, 2:53 for further explanation.		Plazi	Volovnik, Semyon V.	Volovnik, Semyon V. (2025): Phytochory - the dispersal of animals by terrestrial and aquatic plants. Journal of Natural History 59 (21 - 24): 1469-1539, DOI: 10.1080/00222933.2025.2475536, URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/00222933.2025.2475536
