Abstract
Seeds in soil banks can survive for many years before conditions become more suitable for germination. Meanwhile, seeds undergo changes in morphology and viability. In this study, we launched an artificial seed bank experiment that included 26 species of seeds. We excavated cohorts for 6–8 consecutive years after burial (YAB) in order to determine changes in the morphology (mass, volume, density, seed form) and proportion of fresh (thus persistent) seeds using a crush test as a measure of persistence. The change in seed morphology was fitted by linear and logistic regression, and the proportion of persistent seeds was fitted by logistic regression (effectively by the binomial GLM), which enabled estimation of 50 and 5% persistence times (PT50 and PT05). We found that in most species, seed mass, volume and proportion of persistent seeds declined with YAB, while other morphological traits were less variable, and the decline in these traits with YAB was best fitted with logistic regression. The decline in the proportion of persistent seeds was better fitted by the change in mass than by YAB in some species. Among the species included in this study, PT50 ranged from 1.2 to 10.5 years, and PT05 ranged from 2.1 to 24.3 years. These results can contribute to better understanding of the ecology of weed seed bank persistence in soil. Describing the morphological changes that the seeds undergo in the soil bank may improve our understanding of the biology of seed persistence and facilitate the identification of seeds from the soil bank.
Highlights
The soil seed bank represents a natural storage of plant seeds in soil, in which seeds may persist and remain viable for many years [1]
Logistic curves appeared to fit the decline in Relative seed mass (rM) better than the simple linear fit in 17 cases, suggesting that in the majority of species, the rate of mass reduction is slow during the first years after burial, accelerates and slows down again
The surprising observation that relative seed mass or volume increased after burial in some species of seeds (Figure 1a,b) has to be viewed as an artefact of natural variability among the seeds
Summary
The soil seed bank represents a natural storage of plant seeds in soil, in which seeds may persist and remain viable for many years [1]. Depending on the above-ground vegetation dynamics, soil seed banks contain different quantities of seeds. These quantities are largest in arable land, where numbers may exceed 105 seeds m−2 , and in grasslands (up to 104 seeds m−2 ) [2,3]. Plant species largely differ in the persistence of seed banks. Some species form only a transient seed bank, as seeds that do not germinate quickly do not usually survive more than a year [2,4]
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