Abstract
The diaspore bank is an important component of biological diversity acting mainly as storage and source of diaspores, which also indicate dynamics and patterns of maintenance of plant diversity. We tested the hypothesis that the diaspore bank would be the responsible factor for the maintenance of the aquatic plant species, used two techniques to evaluate the diaspore bank: seedling emergence and direct counting of field samples. Density and richness of the diaspore bank were correlated with plant cover of the aquatic macrophyte communities and also with the euphotic zone radiation in different phases of the hydrological cycle. The diaspore bank is a key factor in maintenance of aquatic macrophyte assemblages in this pond. Nymphaea amazonum was one of the dominant species in the pond and presented temporally peaks of plant cover. Furthermore, depth allowed induction of germination of stored diaspores. Therefore, the diaspore bank may predict which species colonizes a site when environmental characteristics are favorable and allows inferring which processes are linked to changes in structure of aquatic macrophyte assemblages. These mechanisms are the means for recovery of macrophyte species under natural disturbances, represented by water level oscillations in floodplains.
Highlights
Holling (1973, p. 17) defined resilience as “[...]the persistence of relations in a system, a measure of the ability of systems to absorb changes of its state variables, the determining variables and their parameters, continuing to persist in time”
We evaluated the relation between the macrophyte diaspore bank in the sediment and the plant cover of aquatic macrophytes in a temporary floodplain lake that remains mostly unconnected with the river Paraná
For N. amazonum, it seems that its maximum cover in March 2009, was dependent on the diaspore bank built from seed set in previous years
Summary
Holling (1973, p. 17) defined resilience as “[...]the persistence of relations in a system, a measure of the ability of systems to absorb changes of its state variables, the determining variables and their parameters, continuing to persist in time”. Propagules can arrive from outside the system or be already present in the water or sediment. In this sense, one of the most important. Biological Sciences structural components of wetland ecosystems is the diaspore bank, defined as an aggregation of non germinated seeds, potentially capable of replacing adult plants (Bakker, 1989). It is a fundamental component in succession and development of plant communities in wetlands (Valk, 1981)
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