Germinable Soil Seed Bank in Biancana Badlands

Simona Maccherini,Dino Torri,Elisa Santi

doi:10.3390/d11120223

Simona Maccherini, Dino Torri + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/d11120223

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Abstract

Seed banks are important for understanding vegetation dynamics and habitat regeneration potential. Biancana badlands are vanishing landscapes where recurring and non-recurring management has been advocated to restore vegetation. Here, we investigated germinable seed bank structure and composition of a biancana badland in central Italy and evaluated the relationship between the standing vegetation and soil seed bank. We identified four land cover classes in five biancana badlands of Tuscany (central Italy) and collected data from 132 vegetation plots and 660 soil cores. We recorded 117 species in the standing vegetation. The seedlings that emerged from the soil samples, mostly annual species, numbered 183 and belonged to 31 taxa (392.5 seedlings/m−2 on average across the four land cover classes). Standing vegetation showed an aggregated spatial pattern with distinct communities while the seed bank showed a less aggregated spatial pattern. The similarity between the seed bank and standing vegetation was low. In contrast with the features generally found for disturbed and pioneer communities, but in line with seed bank characteristics of other badlands, the seed bank was particularly poor in species.

Highlights

Seed banks, which include all viable seeds in the soil in a given area [1], are important for understanding vegetation dynamics [2,3,4] and are considered an indicator of the likelihood of restoration success [5,6,7,8,9,10,11]
A recent review of European plant community seed bank characteristics indicates some general trends: The number of live seeds in the soil and similarity between the standing vegetation and seed bank are high in unstable disturbed communities; and similarity between communities seems to be higher in the seed bank than in standing vegetation [10]
Encroachment of grassland by spontaneous succession or afforestation generally causes a decrease in the number of grassland species in the soil seed bank [50,51,52]

Summary

Introduction

Seed banks, which include all viable seeds in the soil in a given area [1], are important for understanding vegetation dynamics [2,3,4] and are considered an indicator of the likelihood of restoration success [5,6,7,8,9,10,11]. Plant communities of arid and semi-arid regions, including those from large areas in the Mediterranean basin, maintain important seed banks, especially in annual communities [12], and are the habitats with the highest diaspore richness and density [13]. Restoration of target communities seems to be more feasible for early successional plant communities and for heathland than for late successional plant assemblages [10]

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