A question/answer discussion session was conducted at the conclusion of the workshop “Pest Management During Transition to Organic Farming Systems”. The following categories were used to summarize the discussion: 1) questions and answers related to cultural and biological practices and their effects under various climatic conditions, 2) recommendations for pest management, and 3) future researc...

Seed banks are a common characteristics to many plant species, 1 which allow storage of genetic diversity in the soil as dormant seeds for various 2 periods of time. We investigate an above-ground population following a Fisher3 Wright model with selection coupled with a deterministic seed bank assuming 4 the length of the seed bank is kept constant and the number of seeds is large. 5 To assess ...

Some of the most species-rich areas and highest concentrations of threatened and endangered species in the southeastern United States are found in wet savanna and flatwood longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.) communities. Where intensive forestry practices have eliminated much of the natural understory of the longleaf ecosystem, the potential for reestablishment through a seed bank may present...

Question: Are seed mass and shape related to persistence in the soil seed bank among 54 species of the Israeli flora? Search method: Persistence was determined by soil seed bank investigations in which the fraction of non-germinated viable seeds was regarded as the persistent soil seed bank. When seedling emergence had ceased but before new seeds were shed, all soil from the upper 5 cm of 120 q...

This study investigated the effects of microhabitat characteristics on soil seed bank structure, regeneration strategies, and plant composition in a Mediterranean coastal sand dune in Israel. Three different microhabitats were selected: (a) open patches between shrubs, (b) shrub understorey, and (c) open, disturbed patches in pedestrian trails. In each microhabitat two types of sampling plots w...

Pinus nigra and Robinia pseudoacacia are exotic trees used for afforestation in Hungary. Pinus nigrawas non-invasive, however R. pseudoacacia escaped from cultivation and invaded several vegetation types including pine plantations. It has recently been planned to cut P. nigra plantations and replace them by native tree stands, especially in nature reserves. The scattered presence of R. pseudoac...

Seed banks are critically important for disturbance specialist plants because seeds of these species germinate only in disturbed soil. Disturbance and seed depth affect the survival and germination probability of seeds in the seed bank, which in turn affect population dynamics. We develop a density-dependent stochastic integral projection model to evaluate the effect of stochastic soil disturba...

Seed dormancy cycling plays a crucial role in the lifecycle timing of many plants. Little is known of how the seeds respond to the soil seed bank environment following dispersal in spring into the short-term seed bank before seedling emergence in autumn. Seeds of the winter annual Arabidopsis ecotype Cvi were buried in field soils in spring and recovered monthly until autumn and their molecular...

Understanding local and global extinction is a fundamental objective of both basic and applied ecology. Island biogeography theory (IBT) and succession theory provide frameworks for understanding extinction in changing landscapes. We explore the relative contribution of fragment size vs. succession on species' declines by examining distributions of abundances for 18 plant species declining over...

—Pinyon-juniper (Pinus monophylla–Juniperus osteosperma) woodlands are expanding into shrubsteppe ecosystems in western portions of the Great Basin. Often, highly competitive trees displace the understory, and prescribed fire is increasingly used as a restoration tool. To inform management decisions about post-fire recovery, we examined immediate and long-term (i.e., 2 growing seasons) response...