Buried Viable Seeds in Temperate Forests

Abstract

The buried seed population has great significance for plant demography, since it is regarded as the potential or initial coenopopulation. Buried seeds in the diverse communities in the temperate forest in Japan were analyzed. The density of buried seeds increases in the early stage of secondary succession, comes to a maximum in the secondary forest and decreases later in the climax forest. This fluctuation of densities is caused by a high seed production of the species in the felling site and secondary forest, and a low seed production in the climax forest. The seed banks of the main species consist of three types: no reserve of seeds in the growth season (Type A), reduced seed bank (Type B) and permanent seed bank (Type C). The main species are classified into nine groups based principally on their seed bank type and life form. Each of these nine functional groups has its own reproductive pattern. Each functional group is present at a particular stage during the process of vegetation change. It is suggested that these diverse patterns were evolved in forest vegetation with a mosaic structure having cyclic vegetation changes: forest vegetation is a complex association consisting of species which have diverse life history patterns.