SOIL SEED BANK AFTER 18 YEARS OF SUCCESSION FROM GRASSLAND TO FOREST

Authors
Citation
P. Milberg, SOIL SEED BANK AFTER 18 YEARS OF SUCCESSION FROM GRASSLAND TO FOREST, Oikos, 72(1), 1995, pp. 3-13
Citations number
92
Categorie Soggetti
Zoology,Ecology
Journal title
OikosACNP
ISSN journal
00301299
Volume
72
Issue
1
Year of publication
1995
Pages
3 - 13
Database
ISI
SICI code
0030-1299(1995)72:1<3:SSBA1Y>2.0.ZU;2-J
Abstract
I studied the vegetation and seed bank in an 18-yr-old, replicated exp eriment with grazed and ungrazed plots in a semi-natural, perennial gr assland in southern Sweden. In the ungrazed plots, a tall (16-20 m) an d dense tree layer had developed. There were fewer plant species growi ng in ungrazed plots than in grazed plots, but the difference was not significant. However, the number of species per square metre was signi ficantly lower in ungrazed plots. Hence, on a smaller scale, the groun d vegetation had become less diverse, but on a larger scale few specie s had been lost. In the seed bank, a few species lost from the vegetat ion were still present as seeds in the soil, but in most cases species lost were not recorded in the seed bank. Seeds of species that had co lonized plots over the 18 yr were evenly distributed in the soil betwe en the upper (0-4 cm) and lower (4-8 cm) sampling depths. Most of the seeds of species that had disappeared from plots were deep in the soil . Hypotheses about changes in the seed bank during secondary successio n, predicting decrease in species richness and seed density, were not confirmed.