5 | CONCLUSION AND CAVEATS
We verified that reward-less seeds of achlorophyllous and myco-heterotrophic M. humile were certainly dispersed by ants. A part of the seeds was left in the ant nests and the other part of the seeds could be discarded outside the nest directionally although we could not evaluate the fate of genuine seeds but evaluated that of dummy seeds. In future studies, we must track the fate of the genuine seeds and investigate spatial distribution of the plants and the ant nests to validate the directed seed dispersal of the achlorophyllous plantM. humile. An expected way of bioassay is to copy various conditions of the forest floors and to examine the directed dispersal by ants in detail.