Seed supply limits seedling recruitment of Eucalyptus miniata: interactions between seed predation by ants and fire in the Australian seasonal tropics.

Seed predation can cause substantial seed losses and influence plant population dynamics, but the impact depends on the extent to which populations are limited by seed availability or favorable microsites for recruitment. Harvester ants are the dominant post-dispersal seed predators in Australia's tropical savannas, and their abundance and foraging efficiency, as well as the availability of seed and microsites, are affected by fire history. We undertook a predator-exclusion experiment to examine the interactive effects of fire history (no fire compared with annual burning over 5 years) and seed predation by ants on seedling establishment of the dominant savanna tree, Eucalyptus miniata, in northern Australia.