If you don’t get the attempt at humour, nevermind. There’s an ever lasting debate in French as to whether the proper plural of foreign words integrating the language should be frenchisized or we should keep their original plural. Some people thus never miss an opportunity to yell latinised plurals, especially in biological sciences where many words are the legacy of Latin as the previous universal science language (e.g. locus/loci, homonculus/homonculi and so forth). I guess there isn’t such a debate in the English speaking world, just because. (locuses, homunculuses). (you see what I mean).
We are going to speak of great choruses of jargonry around -chory. The word of the week that came out today is unfortunately at odds with its use in the English world (I thought of agochory, but it is merely in use, as anthropochory is prefered). -chory is all about seeds dispersal, and that’s what I’m doing right now, getting dispersed, ’cause I can’t seem being able to write focusely. Unfair me. (and the mosquitoes flying around tonight!).
-chory takes its roots as transportation (thus, dispersal ability). Whenever seeds take public transportation, that would be agochory. (Though this would also happen with private drives, and most long distance agochory on earth occured by boat).
Then we would be done with the word of the week. But that would fall flat from the humongous lexicon of -chory slag (not slang, I’m not an expert in slang yet, gimme time to lurk more!). Because there are many cheek -chory in the biological language. To my delectation. In a supplement of the above referenced paper*, I found this wonderfull table:
Dispersal distance [m] of 99% of seeds |
Corresponding dispersal modes |
1 | Blastochory (autochory) Boleochory (anemochory) for species < 30 cm Ombrochory (hydrochory) |
5 | Ballochory (autochory) Cystometeorochory (anemochory) Chamaechory (anemochory) for fruits in grassland Boleochory (anemochory) for species > 30 cm |
15 | Pterometeorochory (anemochory) for herbs Myrmecochory (zoochory) Cystometeorochory (anemochory) ferns, Orchids, Pyrolaceae, Orobanchaceae in forest Trichometeorochory (anemochory) in forest or little efficient plumes Epizoochory (zoochory) for small mammals |
150 | Chamaechory (anemochory) for seeds on snow or dry inflorescence Pterometeorochory (anemochory) for trees Dyszoochory (zoochory) /seeds not stocked but dispersed by small animals |
500 | Trichometeorochory (anemochory) in openland with efficient plumes Cystometeorochory (anemochory) ferns, Orchids, Orobanchaceae in openland |
1500 | Dyszoochory (zoochory) for seeds stocked by large animals Endozoochory (zoochory) /seeds eaten by birds or large vertebrates Epizoochory (zoochory) by large mammals |
5000 | Agochory (anthropochory) |
– That’s an awfull lot, and certainly not every chory. How many did you know before reading this? Just chorious!
* Engler, R., Randin, C. F., Vittoz, P., Czáka, T., Beniston, M., Zimmermann, N. E. and Guisan, A. 2009. Predicting future distributions of mountain plants under climate change: does dispersal capacity matter. – Ecography 32: 34–45.
nice article …
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Thank you for submitting this post — and others– to our February Berry-Go-round carnival! It is now up at Foothills Fancies. Happy reading!