Abstract
The role of water erosion on seed loss and on plant establishment and distribution is unknown on the Chinese Loess Plateau, which suffers serious soil erosion. The seed susceptibility of 16 local species to removal by water erosion from loess slopes was determined by rainfall simulation experiments. The experiments were performed on slopes with gradients of 10°, 15°, 20° and 25° for a 60-min duration at an intensity of 50 mm/h, 100 mm/h and 150 mm/h, respectively. The total seed removal rate obviously increased with rainfall intensity but did not obviously change with slope gradient, and the responses were varied among the species. The morphological characteristics affecting seed loss of the various species are quite different. Our experiments showed that the seed removal from some species are mainly due to seed weight, some species are mainly affected by seed shape, some are affected by appendage, some by surface structure, some by the comprehensive effects of the different morphological characteristics, while seeds having mucilage secretion are not easily moved by water erosion. We argued that the seed removal during water erosion can clearly effect seed redistribution and deposition, and consequently, species composition and vegetation spatial distribution.
Highlights
In soil erosion environments, the overland flow and sediment transport can carry away the seeds that arrive at the soil surface and those that remain in the soil [1,2,3]
Seeds Seeds from the following 16 species were used in the experiments: Heteropappus altaicus (HA), Bidens bipinnata (BB), Dracocephalum moldavica (DM), Clematis florida (CF), Lespedeza davurica (LD), Periploca sepium (PS), Daucus carota (DC), Bothriochloa ischaemun (BI), Robinia psendoacacia (RP), Rubia cordifolia (RC), Cotoneaster multiflorus (CM), Patrinia heterophylla (PH), Sophora viciifolia (SV), Platycladus orientalis (PO), Armeniaca sibiriea (AS) and Rosa xanthina (RX)
Effect of seed morphology features on seed loss There was a wide variation in seed losses between species, which could not be quantitatively explained by seed weight, size or shape indexes
Summary
The overland flow and sediment transport can carry away the seeds that arrive at the soil surface and those that remain in the soil [1,2,3]. The seed loss caused by water erosion may cause postdispersal of seed, alter the primary seed dispersal and deposition pattern [4], lead to seed redistribution, and determine seed spatial colonization, survival and seedling establishment [5,6,7]. The influence of the spatial distribution of seedling renewal, plays an important role in vegetation restoration and succession [4,8]. Seed removal caused by water erosion has deservedly been given much attention since 1995. The following have been investigated: seed loss by water erosion [3,9], the influence of seed size and shape [10], and slope
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