Soil Spore Bank of Ferns in a Gallery Forest of the Ecological Station of Panga, Uberlândia, MG, Brazil

Abstract

The soil spore bank of ferns is a biotic component of plant communities, important for regeneration processes, population dynamics, and conservation programs. Each year it is enriched when new units are incorporated, and impoverished when they are lost by predation, loss of viability, or by germination. Soil was collected in three microhabitats of the gallery forest of the Panga Stream, at four depths, in the wet and the dry seasons. In general, independent of the season, ‘dike’ samples presented lower numbers of viable spores when compared to samples from the ‘middle’ and ‘edge’ of the forest. The number of viable spores and the number of fern species represented decreased with depth. At the end of the dry season, the number of viable spores decreased only in the first centimeters of the soil. Viable spores of thirteen terrestrial species were registered in the soil of this gallery forest. The presence of viable spores in the soil after six months drought and in deeper soil layers shows the existence of a persistent soil spore bank in the gallery forest of the Panga Stream.