Crabs were more likely than rats to disperse seeds (Lee 1985; Krishna and Somanathan 2014), but still destroyed seeds of three of the seven species we identified as crab-consumed.
Natural disasters can also destroy seed banks.
But whether as an accompaniment to champagne or beer, the certain supply suddenly dwindled as the coastal, brackish water where the oysters lay became polluted with waste water and chemicals and oil residue and poisons that destroyed the seed grounds and beds, the supply and demand for a marine food that had suddenly lost its viability and market.
The militias also destroyed crops, seeds, fishing nets and farm animals, or stole what they could carry away.
'I obtained Tragopogon hybridum two years ago about autumn, in a small enclosure of the garden, where I had planted Tragopogon pratense and Tragopogon porrifolius, but the winter supervening destroyed the seeds.
Carolus Linnaeus (1760) Disquistitio de Sexu Plantarum, translation from Roberts (1929) Plant Hybridisation before Mendel, Princeton University Press, p. 22. 'I obtained Tragopogon hybridum two years ago about autumn, in a small enclosure of the garden, where I had planted Tragopogon pratense and Tragopogon porrifolius, but the winter supervening destroyed the seeds.
We hypothesized that pesticide seed treatments reduce the abundance of natural enemies (e.g., soil-dwelling seed predators and pathogens) that damage or destroy weed seeds in the soil, and therefore seed banks in treated plots would be larger and less diverse than those in untreated plots.
You strive directly and nobly towards perfection of the race, destroying unhealthy seed and correcting the flaws which threaten its essential purity".
Gambian giant rats and baboons can easily destroy precious seed stores.
