SEED MASS, HABITAT AND LIFE-HISTORY - A REANALYSIS OF SALISBURY (1942, 1974)

A recent re-analysis of the data of Salisbury (1974) claims his data d o not support the hypothesis that seeds of species from shaded habitat s are heavier than those from unshaded habitats, partly because the or iginal analysis was inappropriate and partly because of bias in the da taset. We show first that the re-analysis itself contains errors, and second that the charge of bias is based largely on a misunderstanding. We also show that analysis of a larger dataset, drawn from Salisbury (1942) and from Salisbury (1974), provides convincing support for the hypothesis and suggests that the relationship is independent of life h istory.