Plants can reduce the fitness costs of granivory by satiating seed predators. The most common satiation mechanism is the production of large crops, which ensures that a proportion of the seeds survive predation. Nevertheless, satiation of small granivores at the seed level may also exist. Larger seeds would satiate more efficiently, enhancing the probability of seed survival after having been attacked. However, a larger seed size could compromise the efficiency of satiation by means of large crops if there were a negative relationship between seed size and the number of seeds produced by an individual plant. We analyze both types of satiation in the interaction between the holm oak Quercus ilex and the chestnut weevil Curculio elephas. Both crop size and acorn size differed strongly in a sample of 32 trees. Larger crop sizes satiated weevils, and higher proportions of the seeds were not attacked as crop size increased. Larger seeds also satiated weevil larvae, as a larger acorn size increased the likelihood of embryo survival. Seedling size was strongly related to acorn size and was reduced by weevil attack, but seedlings coming from large weeviled acorns were still larger. The number and the size of the acorns produced by individual trees were negatively related. Larger proportions of the crop were infested in oaks producing less numerous crops of larger acorns. However, contrary to expectations, these trees did not satiate more effectively at the seed level either. Effective satiation by larger acorns was precluded by larger multi-infestation rates associated to smaller seed crops, in such a way that the proportion of attacked seeds that survived did not vary among trees with different acorn sizes. These results highlight the need of considering satiation by means of large crops and large seeds in studies of predispersal seed predation. Long-term monitoring on individual oaks will help to assess whether there is a trade-off between the number and the size of the acorns Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2006 and, if it existed, how it could condition the fitness consequences of both types of satiation.

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Summary1. The spatial distribution of dispersed seeds results from the combined action of the caching strategies followed by different granivores. Hence, it is essential to study the factors that influence seed predation and caching decisions to achieve a better understanding of the dispersal process. 2. In this study, we document how seed dispersal and the spatial patterns of natural recruitment are linked to the strategies used by granivores to protect their cached seeds from pilferage. We present a theoretical model showing that those strategies may convey benefits for both seed cachers and plants.3. We studied the relationships among seed production, seed predation ⁄ caching, cache pilferage and plant recruitment in a savanna-like landscape of oaks dispersed by scatter-hoarding rodents. 4. Our results show that acorn-dispersing rodents were concentrated under the canopies of scattered oaks, where the theft of cached acorns increased by 77% as compared to that of the surrounding open landscape. Acorns were thus cached selectively in the open areas to reduce pilferage; in fact, none of the few seeds cached beneath tree canopies survived predation by granivores (pilferage + recovery). Meanwhile, some acorns cached in the surrounding open areas were neither pilfered nor recovered and then recruited successfully. Accordingly, natural recruitment of newly emerged seedlings was higher outside than under canopies, suggesting that rodent caching strategies have direct implications for the directed dispersal of oaks. 5. Synthesis. The spatial patterns of seed dispersal shape the fitness of both the plant because they influence dispersal and recruitment efficiency, and the granivores that cache and predate its seeds because they influence their foraging efficiency. Cache protection strategies reduce pilferage significantly and enhance seed recovery rates by the cache owner. At the same time, more seeds remain dispersed and unrecovered. Thus, cache protection strategies can provide net benefits to the plant in terms of effective directed dispersal.