Comparison of Seed Longevity for Thirty Forest, Grassland and Weed Species of the Central European Flora : Results of a Seed Burial Experiment

We compared seed longevity of herbaceous species in three habitat types differing in stability. We hypothesized that seed longevity is the lowest for forest species (living in stable habitat), the highest for weeds, while species of xerothermic grasslands take an intermediate value. Ten species were selected from each of the three habitats with balanced representation of plant families among habitats. Seeds of the 30 species were deep buried at 65 cm depth, then replicates recovered after 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 years, and germinated in an unheated greenhouse. Weeds expressed the highest germination rate (36.1% in average) exceeding forest (14.4%) and grassland species (10.2%) which did not differ significantly. The number of species with transient, short-term persistent and long-term persistent seed bank, respectively, was 1, 7 and 2 for grasslands; 1, 3 and 6 for forests; and 0, 1 and 9 for weeds. As expected, weeds possessed the highest seed longevity. Contrary to our assumption, low seed longevity was not the norm among forest understorey species, and seed longevity of xerothermic grassland species was not intermediate but the shortest one. Ecological background of differences between hypotheses and experimental results are discussed. First record on seed bank type is reported here for 12 species: Dianthus pontederae, Digitalis grandiflora, Ferula sadleriana, Hieracium sylvaticum, Inula ensifolia, Jurinea mollis, Lychnis coronaria, Saponaria officinalis, Scorzonera austriaca, Secale sylvestre, Stipa borysthenica, Verbascum lychnitis.

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Opracowanie ze środków MNiSW w ramach umowy 812/P-DUN/2016 na działalność upowszechniającą naukę.