TY - JOUR T1 - Seed predation increases from the Arctic to the Equator and from high to low elevations JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/304634 SP - 304634 AU - A.L. Hargreaves AU - Esteban Suárez AU - Klaus Mehltreter AU - Isla Myers-Smith AU - Sula E. Vanderplank AU - Heather L. Slinn AU - Yalma L. Vargas-Rodriguez AU - Sybille Haeussler AU - Santiago David AU - Jenny Muñoz AU - Roberto Carlos Almazán Núñez AU - Deirdre Loughnan AU - John W. Benning AU - David A. Moeller AU - Jedediah F. Brodie AU - Haydn J.D. Thomas AU - M.P.A. Morales Y1 - 2018/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/04/29/304634.abstract N2 - Species interactions have long been predicted to increase in intensity towards the tropics and low elevations, due to gradients in climate, productivity, or biodiversity. Despite their importance for understanding global ecological and evolutionary processes, plant-animal interaction gradients are particularly difficult to test systematically across large geographic gradients, and evidence from smaller, disparate studies is inconclusive. By systematically measuring post-dispersal seed predation using 6980 standardized seed depots along 18 mountains in the Pacific cordillera, we found that seed predation increases 18% from the Arctic to Equator and 16% from 4000 masl to sea level. Clines in total predation, likely driven by invertebrates, were consistent across tree-line ecotones and in continuous forest, and were better explained by climate seasonality than by productivity, biodiversity, or latitude. These results suggest that species interactions play predictably greater ecological and evolutionary roles in tropical, lowland, and other less seasonal ecosystems.One Sentence Summary Post-dispersal seed predation increases from the Arctic to the Equator and from high elevations to sea level. ER -