Assessment of soil seed bank type of four disturbance tolerant herb species - results of a 19-year-long seed burial experiment

Authors

  • Péter Csontos Institute for Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, Centre for Agricultural Research H-1022 Budapest, Herman Ottó út 15.
  • Tibor Kalapos Department of Plant Systematics, Ecology and Theoretical Biology, Institute of Biology, Eötvös Loránd University H-l 117 Budapest, Pázmány Péter sátény 1/c.
  • Júlia Tamás Department of Botany, Hungarian Natural History Museum H-l087 Budapest, Könyves Kálmán körút 40.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.56617/tl.3516

Keywords:

Cardamine impatiens, Geum urbanum, greenhouse germination, persistent seed bank, Rumex sanguineus, seed longevity, Verbascum austriacum

Abstract

In this paper, soil seed bank properties are reported for four disturbance tolerant forest herb species: Cardamine impatiens L., Geum urbanum L., Rumex sanguineus L. and Verbascum austriacum Schott. We assessed the seed longevity of these species in a seed burial experiment. The freshly harvested seeds were mixed with sterilized sand and then buried in clay pots at a depth of 0.65 m, using multiple replicates of 100 seeds per repeat for each species. For every species, one sample with 100 seeds was exhumed 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 19 year after burial, and then seeds were germinated under greenhouse conditions. We found the seed bank of C. impatiens to be shortterm persistent. For this species, the trait is probably the result of two opposing influences, as the forest environment would support transient soil seed bank, while the biennial life history of the species and its occurrence in disturbed habitats would favour a long-term persistent seed bank. In the case of G. urbanum, we found long-term persistent soil seed bank, that is the first data published for this species. It should be noted that for species with flat and elongated seed, this seed bank type is relatively rare, thus G. urbanum can be considered as exceptional in this respect. The seeds of V austriacum, like other previously studied mullein species, showed excellent survival: in the 19th year after burial, seeds germinated practically in the same percentage as they did in the first year. For R. sanguineus, three different soil seed bank types have been reported in the literature. According to our results, this species can maintain long-term persistent seed bank in the soil as its seeds germinated in 43 percent after 19 years of burial. In our paper, we also discuss the usefulness of seed burial experiments for studying seed longevity of species.

Author Biography

  • Péter Csontos, Institute for Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, Centre for Agricultural Research H-1022 Budapest, Herman Ottó út 15.

    corresponding author
    cspeter@rissac.hu

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Published

2019-12-12

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Assessment of soil seed bank type of four disturbance tolerant herb species - results of a 19-year-long seed burial experiment. (2019). JOURNAL OF LANDSCAPE ECOLOGY | TÁJÖKOLÓGIAI LAPOK , 17(2), 165-177. https://doi.org/10.56617/tl.3516

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