Regenerated forests now compose over half of the world's tropical forest cover and are increasingly important as providers of ecosystem services, freshwater, and biodiversity conservation. Much of the value and functionality of regenerating forests depends on the plant diversity they contain. Tropical forest diversity is strongly shaped by mutualistic interactions between plants and fruit-eatin...

Habitat restoration projects are often conducted when prior use or extraction of natural resources results in land degradation. The success of restoration programmes, however, is variable, and studies that provide evidence of long term outcomes are valuable for evaluation purposes. This study focused on the restoration of vegetation within a limestone quarry in Dorset, UK between 1997 and 2014....

Diplochory is seed dispersal by a sequence of two or more steps or phases, each involving a different dispersal agent. Here, we describe five forms of diplochory and derive general characteristics of each phase of seed dispersal. The first and second phases of diplochory offer different benefits to plants. Phase one dispersal often results in escape from density-dependent seed and seedling mort...

Multiple consumers often attack seeds, seedlings, and adult plants, but their population-level consequences remain uncertain. We examined how insect and small mammal consumers influenced the demography and abundance of the perennial shrub, bush lupine (Lupinus arboreus). In grassland and dune habitats we established replicate experimental lupine populations in 81-m2 plots that were either prote...

use of plant growth promoting bacteria (pgpb) and high quality of seed as agricultural inputs play important roles in sustainable crop production. to study the effects of different levels of seed aging and pgpb's application on field emergence, seedling establishment and yield of two red kidney bean cultivars in field conditions, an experiment was carried out as factorial based in a rcbd d...

Seed germination, seedling emergence and crop establishment are important aspects of canola production, and are the main components of seed/seedling vigour. A major concern of seed businesses and canola growers alike is loss of seed vigour that may go undetected before planting. Two vigour assays, based on off-gassing of ethyl alcohol from poor vigour seed, are being developed. They are a simpl...

Fecal seeding by livestock may be an effective, low-cost means of rangeland restoration. We compared recruitment of switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) from seed fed to cattle and deposited in dung to that of broadcast-seeded plots receiving a comparable number of unfed seed. Although germinability of seed passed through livestock (52 to 62%) was reduced relative to that of broadcast seed (85 to ...

wormwood sagebrush (artemisia sieberi besser) is one of the most widely distributed shrub species in iran and turkistan steppes, its establishment on dry lands has generally been proven difficult because of low seedling vigor, inability to compete with herbaceous species, poor seed quality, and altered edaphic conditions. in order to evaluation of planting methods and seedling establishment, se...

Improving seed germination rate accelerates early seedling establishment, in turn, enhances plant growth and forage production in rangelands and pastures. Rapid and simultaneous germination of seeds leads to successful plant establishment. The ingoing research aims to deals with effect of SiO2 nanoparticles at concentrations of 0, 5, 20, 40, 60 and 80 mg/l on seed germination rate in Astragalus...