Unintentional seed dispersal via container-grown garden plants: Seed density and composition vary among exporter countries

Sonkoly, Judit and Törő-Szijgyártó, Viktória and Petró, Edit and Takács, Attila and Guallichico Suntaxi, Luis Roberto and McIntosh-Buday, Andrea and Díaz Cando, Patricia Elizabeth and Tóth, Katalin and Madar, Szilvia and Kovacsics-Vári, Gergely and Török, Péter (2026) Unintentional seed dispersal via container-grown garden plants: Seed density and composition vary among exporter countries. NeoBiota, 107. pp. 331-351. ISSN 1619-0033

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Abstract

The global ornamental plant trade is well-known as an important source of non-native plants, but the unintentional dispersal of seeds as contaminants of this trade is rarely considered and largely understudied. We sampled the substrate of imported container-grown plants in six garden centres in Hungary to answer the following questions: (i) What species’ seeds are present in the substrate of imported garden plants and in what quantity? (ii) Do the substrates of plants imported from different countries contain seeds in different density and composition? (iii) Do characteristics of the host garden plants affect the number and diversity of seeds found in their substrate? In the studied 60 litres of substrate samples, we detected altogether 2,181 seeds of 80 taxa. On average, 1 litre of substrate contained 36 seeds of five species. Most species were non-native in Hungary and 48% of the samples contained at least one seed of a recently introduced, emerging neophyte. We found that the substrate of plants imported from different countries contained seeds in different number, diversity, and composition. Thus, the structure of the horticultural trade network can have an effect on the non-native flora of importing countries. Furthermore, the substrate of needle-leaved ornamental species contained more seeds than the substrate of broadleaved ornamentals. Our findings provide further evidence that the ornamental plant trade can disperse a large number of seeds of numerous species and introduce new non-native species into the importing countries. We conclude that this introduction pathway deserves greater attention in invasion biology.

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