What is seed dispersal?

Seed dispersal is the movement of seeds away from the parent plant. Different plants use different methods to spread their seeds to give them a better chance to survive. Some of these methods are:

Wind
Water
Animals
Mechanical

Why is seed dispersal important?

Some plants produce hundreds or thousands of seeds at a time. What if they all fell to the ground near the parent plant and started to grow? Do you think that all of these plants would be able to grow and survive in the same spot?

One sunflower can produce over a thousand seeds. They need to spread out to have a better chance of surviving.

Seed dispersal is important because spreads seeds to different areas so that the new plants will not have to compete with their parent plant or each other. Seed dispersal also helps various types of plants to spread to new areas where they did not exist before.