The effects of changing management on seed banks in ancient coppices

Abstract

The presence of dormant seeds in soils (that are able to germinate given the right conditions) is a phenomenon obvious to any farmer or gardener; and in common with the soils of most other vegetation types, those of woodlands also contain viable seeds (Roberts, 1981;Leck et al., 1989). The density and species composition of soil seed banks depend on the rate at which seeds enter and are lost from the soil. In frequently disturbed habitats, seed banks are large and the species composition of the seed bank and the vegetation is usually similar, e.g. in arable fields (Jensen, 1969; Wilson et al., 1985). In undisturbed habitats seed banks are smaller and there is generally less correspondence between the species present in the seed bank and the vegetation, e.g. in old undisturbed forests (Kellman, 1974 Johnson, 1975; Whipple, 1978). Seed banks are often dominated by early successional species, e.g. the weeds of agricultural soils. In forest soils it has been shown that the seeds of some species can survive entire forest rotations (Granstrom, 1988) but others only survive for a few decades (Hill and Stevens, 1981). Late successional species, e.g. forest herbs and most trees, generally have short-lived seeds which do not survive for long periods in the soil (Strickler and Edgerton, 1976; Petrov, 1977; Brown and Oosterhuis, 1981; Staaf et al.1987).