The fire-prone shrublands of southwestern Australia are renowned for their high plant species diversity and prominence of canopy seed storage (serotiny). We compared species richness, abundance, and life history attributes for soil and canopy seed banks in relation to extant vegetation among four sites with different substrate conditions and high species turnover (50-80%) to identify whether th...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Differences in dormancy and germination requirements have been documented in heteromorphic seeds of many species, but it is unknown how this difference contributes to maintenance and regeneration of populations. The primary aim of this study was to compare the seed bank dynamics, including dormancy cycling, of the two seed morphs (black and brown) of the cold desert halophyt...

Soil seed banks can act as an important source in forest regeneration, and the information on the seed bank composition is vital for determining the resilience of plant communities under severe environments such as urban settings. In this study, we examined the seed bank density and functional composition, and their relationships with aboveground vegetation in three remnant evergreen broad-leav...

This paper analyzes optimal weed control management strategies under static and dynamic decision rules. Seed bank is taken into account to introduce dynamics into the model. We present a numerical example of controlling Sheathed Monochoria (Monochoria Vaginalis) in Korean rice paddy fields. Our results show that producers benefit from dynamic decision rules; higher income and more control of we...

Seed banking is now widely used for the ex situ conservation of wild plant species. Many seed banks that conserve wild species broadly follow international genebank guidelines for seed collection, processing, storage, and management. However, over the last 10-20 years, problems and knowledge gaps have been identified, which have led to more focused seed conservation research on diverse species....

Two venerable hypotheses, widely cited as explanations for either the success or failure of introduced species in recipient communities, are the natural enemies hypothesis and the biotic resistance hypothesis. The natural enemies hypothesis posits that introduced organisms spread rapidly because they are liberated from their co-evolved predators, pathogens and herbivores. The biotic resistance ...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS In wetland plant communities, species-specific responses to pulses of white light and to red : far-red light ratios can vary widely and influence plant emergence from the seed bank. Carex species are the characteristic plants of sedge meadows of natural prairie wetlands in mid-continental USA but are not returning to restored wetlands. Little is known about how light affects...

11 Wildfires have always been a part of the history of Mediterranean forests. However, forest 12 regeneration after a wildfire is not certain. It depends on many factors, some of which may be 13 influenced by land management activities. Failure of regeneration will cause a regime shift in the 14 ecosystem, reducing the provision of ecosystem services and ultimately leading to desertification. 1...

It has been suggested that lower rates of granivory in South American warm deserts compared to their North American counterparts arose from a reduction of seed reserves in the former owing to the extinction of argyrolagid marsupials. We measured seed reserves in two habitats of the central Monte Desert in an attempt to detect such seed decline, but to no avail. After moderate rainfall, maximum ...

1 2 3 François Feer 1a , Jean-François Ponge a , Sylvie Jouard a and Doris Gomez b 4 5 a Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, CNRS UMR 7179, 4 avenue du Petit-Château, 6 91800 Brunoy, France 7 b Centre for Evolutionary and Functional Ecology, CNRS UMR 5175, 1919 Route de Mende, 8 34293 Montpellier Cedex 5, France 9 10 1 Corresponding author ; e-mail : [email protected] 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 . ...