Plant height may mask the true relationship between seed mass and dispersal distance, because taller species tend to have larger seeds than shorter species (Thompson & Rabinowitz 1989; Moles et al. 2004). Consequently, our third aim was to investigate the relationship between seedmass and dispersal distance after controlling for plant height. Subsequently, we predicted that there would be no relationship between seed mass and dispersal distance because of (predicted) opposing relationships between dispersal distance and seedmass and plant height It has been stated that dispersal syndromes produce distinct ranges in dispersal distances, varying in the orders of magnitude (Willson 1993; Vittoz & Engler 2007). This is largely based on multiple single-species studies or studies within a particular dispersal syndrome (Gomez & Espadaler 1998), vegetation type (Cain, Damman & Muir 1998; Clark et al. 2005) or region (Vittoz & Engler 2007). Generalizations are that wind-, waterand vertebrate-dispersed species have longer-distance dispersal capabilities than species with ant, ballistic and unassisted dispersal (Willson 1993; Gomez & Espadaler 1998; Vittoz & Engler 2007). The studies that have examined dispersal distances globally have been primarily descriptive, with distances not quantified for dispersal syndromes (Willson 1993; Hughes et al. 1994). Therefore, our fourth aim was to quantify crossspecies dispersal distances within each dispersal syndrome