Fire-Related Cues Significantly Promote Seed Germination of Some Salt-Tolerant Species from Non-Fire-Prone Saline-Alkaline Grasslands in Northeast China.

Shaoyang Li,Hongyuan Ma,Mark K J Ooi

doi:10.3390/plants10122675

Abstract

Seed germination in response to fire-related cues has been widely studied in species from fire-prone ecosystems. However, the germination characteristics of species from non-fire-prone ecosystems, such as the saline-alkaline grassland, where fire occasionally occurs accidentally or is used as a management tool, have been less studied. Here, we investigate the effects of different types of fire cues (i.e., heat and smoke water) and their combined effect on the seed germination of 12 species from the saline-alkaline grassland. The results demonstrated that heat shock significantly increased the germination percentage of Suaeda glauca and Kochia scoparia var. sieversiana seeds. Smoke water significantly increased the germination percentage of Setaria viridis and K. scoparia seeds. However, compared with single fire cue treatments, the combined treatment neither promoted nor inhibited seed germination significantly in most species. These results suggest that fire cues can be used as germination enhancement tools for vegetation restoration and biodiversity protection of the saline-alkaline grassland.

Highlights

IntroductionPublisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations
Germination responses to different smoke water (SW) concentrations greatly differed among species (Figure 1)
Our results show that SW promoted the germination of K. scoparia, S. viridis, and other representative species in the non-firethe germination of K. scoparia, S. viridis, and other representative species in the non-fireprone saline-alkaline grassland

Summary

Introduction

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Fire is a fundamental ecological process that profoundly affects many terrestrial ecosystems, including forest and grassland ecosystems [1,2,3]. Fire affects the distribution of global biomes and acts as a natural selection force to drive the evolution of species [4,5]. In the Mediterranean climate zone, savannas, and coniferous forests in the northern hemisphere, fire has become an important ecological factor to maintain the stability of these ecosystems [6]

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