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Three seedling emergence methods in soil seed bank studies: implications for interpretation of propagule deposition in riparian zones

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2007

Angela Gurnell ,
Joanne Goodson ,
Ken Thompson ,
Owen Mountford  and
Nick Clifford
Angela Gurnell*
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, King's College London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS, UK
Joanne Goodson
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, King's College London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS, UK
Ken Thompson
Affiliation:
Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield, SheffieldS10 2TN, UK
Owen Mountford
Affiliation:
CEH Monk's Wood, Abbots Rippon, Huntingdon, Cambridgshire PE28 2LS, UK
Nick Clifford
Affiliation:
School of Geography, The University of Nottingham, NottinghamNG7 2RD, UK
*
*Correspondence Fax: 020 7848 1319 Email: angela.gurnell@kcl.ac.uk
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Abstract

Samples of soil and recently deposited sediments were collected from the river bed, bank face and bank tops of two lengths (reaches) of the River Frome, Dorset, UK and one reach of the River Tern, Shropshire, UK. Soil propagule bank samples were collected in May 2003, and depositional samples were collected subsequently over four consecutive 4-month periods between June 2003 and October 2004. The samples were subjected to three emergence trials under drained, waterlogged and submerged conditions. Significantly more seedlings germinated in the drained than waterlogged trial, and waterlogged than submerged trials. Drained, waterlogged and submerged trials identified 186, 76 and 37 species, respectively. Six species identified in the waterlogged trials were not identified in the drained trials, and five species in the submerged trials were not found in the drained trials. Submerged trials added two species to the drained and waterlogged results. Application of detrended correspondence analysis (DCA) to average species abundance data, for the sampled hydrological habitats (bed, bank face, bank top) within the soil propagule bank and four depositional data sets, generated different results for the three trials. The drained treatment revealed significant differences between sites, seasons and hydrological habitats, whereas the waterlogged and submerged treatments presented an increasingly homogeneous view of the samples. Our results confirm other propagule bank emergence comparisons and extend them to depositional samples, demonstrating that the strong environmental sieves imposed by waterlogging and submergence restrict emergence of numerous terrestrial, wetland and even some aquatic species that were successfully identified using the drained conditions.

Keywords

floodingriparian zoneseed depositionseed submergenceseedling emergencesoil seed bankwaterlogging
Type
Research Article
Information
Seed Science Research , Volume 17 , Issue 3 , September 2007 , pp. 183 - 199
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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