Soil seed bank characteristics in relation to land use systems and distance from water in a semi-arid rangeland of southern Ethiopia

Solomon, Tamirat; Snyman, H.A.; Smit, G.N.

doi:10.1016/j.sajb.2005.09.003

Cited by 53 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…The valuable perennial fodder grasses at the study sites depend on continuous seed production for the replenishment of their transient seed banks. Severe grazing pressure on seed bearing plants and prolonged droughts therefore are likely drivers of their seed bank depletion (O'Connor and Pickett, 1992;Solomon et al, 2006), giving way for an increase in population size of less-competitive species. Similarly, Aboling et al (2008) and Sternberg et al (2003) report a large differential effect of grazing on functional groups in a Mediterranean herbaceous community by selective removal of palatable, large and competitive species in favor of short and prostrate species.…”

Section: The Magnitude Of Seed Bank Divergence Across the Fence-linementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, the hypothesis of a higher similarity of shrub understorey seed banks at DEG with the reference site compared to microsites of the open matrix has to be rejected. The local lack of desirable propagules such as of perennial grasses can have three possible causes: (a) reduced seed set through grazing livestock, (b) a low amount of seed arriving at the site and/or (c) inadequate seed retention, which is related to the availability of safe sites (Kinloch and Friedel, 2005b;Solomon et al, 2006). The latter was proved not to be a limiting factor (Dreber and Esler, 2011).…”

Section: The Importance Of Shrubs For Rangeland Regenerationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, the literature is dominated by studies focusing on aboveground assessments, often neglecting the role that soil seed banks play in ecosystem resistance and resilience. The assessment of soil seed banks is widely accepted as a valuable tool to evaluate the condition and restoration potential of African rangelands (Jones and Esler, 2004;Kassahun et al, 2009;Snyman, 2004;Solomon et al, 2006) but to date regional studies from the arid south-western zone of Africa have overlooked this aspect for the most part. Thus, soil seed bank studies constitute a large gap in rangeland knowledge, particularly in the summer rainfall portion of the Karoo constituting the Nama Karoo Biome.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Species, functional groups and community structure in seed banks of the arid Nama Karoo: Grazing impacts and implications for rangeland restoration

Dreber

Oldeland

Rooyen

2011

Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment

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Please cite this article in press as: Dreber, N., et al., Species, functional groups and community structure in seed banks of the arid Nama Karoo: Grazing impacts and implications for rangeland restoration. Agric. Ecosyst. Environ. (2011) The regeneration potential of grazing-affected Nama Karoo vegetation was evaluated by comparing soil seed banks of different microsites across a fence-line contrast in arid Namibia. Seed banks under low and high grazing pressure reflected the condition of the standing vegetation in terms of composition, community structure and species abundance distributions. However, a close concordance between vegetation and seed bank was restricted to the herbaceous and grassy vegetation within the inter-shrub matrix. The divergence of seed bank communities across the fence-line was low at community level but high at the level of species abundances. Continuous severe grazing increased the abundance of small-seeded, prostrate forbs with round seeds and favored unpalatable, annual grasses over palatable, perennial grasses. Microsites provided a source of small-scale variation in seed bank community composition and were dissimilar between the rangelands.Results indicated an advanced divergence in the vegetation at the degraded site with seed banks of species common under sustainable grazing being drastically reduced. Their low abundance, even in safe sites, suggests that long-distance dispersal is one of the main limiting factors for natural re-establishment after disturbance. The inertia in recovery of Namibian degraded rangelands through seed limitation can be overcome only by active species introduction.

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Section: The Magnitude Of Seed Bank Divergence Across the Fence-linementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Importance Of Shrubs For Rangeland Regenerationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Species, functional groups and community structure in seed banks of the arid Nama Karoo: Grazing impacts and implications for rangeland restoration

Dreber

Oldeland

Rooyen

2011

Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment

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“…In some areas, short term conservation management was successful in restoring degraded sites but in other cases, even 20 years of protection failed to allow site recovery, likely because of differences in degradation severity (Basiri and Iravani 2009). The rest period has introduced as an important factor to recovery by soil seed bank (Solomon et al 2006). As for the LDT type, the high number of perennial species found in the soil seed bank might impair the possibilities of recovery as stated by Heydari et al (2012) in west of Iran that showed after human disturbances the percentage of perennial species in soil seed increased.…”

Section: Soil Seed Bank and Vegetation Recoverymentioning

confidence: 99%

Short-term abandonment of human disturbances in Zagros Oak forest ecosystems: Effects on secondary succession of soil seed bank and aboveground vegetation

Heydari

Pothier²,

Faramarzi

et al. 2014

Biodiversitas

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Heydari M, Pothier D, Faramarzi M, Merzaei J. 2014. Short-term abandonment of human disturbances in Zagros Oak forest ecosystems: Effects on secondary succession of soil seed . Zagros Oak forests in the west of Iran have been degraded by anthropogenic activities during many years and to fight against this degradation, several management strategies have been implemented. The principal objectives this study were to identify the characteristics of the soil seed bank and the aboveground vegetation that were affected by degradation and short-term abandonment of human disturbances and evaluate the potential of the soil seed bank to restore the degraded types after short-term conservation management. For that, we compared three types of Zagros forest ecosystem with different management regimes: (i) Long term disturbed type as LDT (also used and disturbed at the present), (ii) Short-term abandonment of human disturbances as SAD (5 years without human disturbances) and an undisturbed control or C (iii). We selected three replicates or stands per type. In the aboveground vegetation (ABV), 115, 72 and 51 species were recorded in C, SAD and LDT types, respectively, whereas in the soil seed bank (SSB) flora, 33, 19 and 12 plant taxa were observed in C, SAD and LDT types, respectively. The percentage of annuals increased in ABV and decreased in SSB with increasing site degradation with human activities such as animal husbandry in the forest edges. The percentage of perennial and biennial herbs decreased in ABV and increased in SSB with increasing site degradation. The Shannon index of the SSB decreased with increasing site degradation. The average seed density in the SAD type was significantly larger than that of the LDT type. DCA analysis showed that the seed bank flora of SAD and LDT types were relatively similar and differed from that of the C type. This indicates that a full recovery of degraded type in the oak forest ecosystem in the Zagros region cannot be based only on the soil seed bank present at the beginning of the protection period while a more complete recovery may require a longer period of protection.

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“…Caixinhas et al, 1993), grasslands (e.g. Funes et al, 2003;Koch et al, 2011), semi-arid rangeland (Solomon et al, 2006), alpine meadows (Ma et al, 2010), salt marshes (Erfanzadeh et al, 2010) and the lower ranges of the Hyrcanian forest (Esmailzadeh et al, 2011). This low similarity indicates that the contribution of the dominant species to the formation of the soil seed bank is of minor importance.…”

Section: The Relationship Between the Soil Seed Bank And Above-groundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparison of soil seed banks of habitats distributed along an altitudinal gradient in northern Iran

Erfanzadeh

Kahnuj

Azarnivand

et al. 2013

Flora - Morphology, Distribution, Functional Ecology of Plants

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In this study we investigated the variations in soil seed banks along an altitudinal gradient in the Alborz Mountains, Iran, covering three habitats from lower to upper altitudes: forest, forest-subalpine grassland ecotone and subalpine meadow. In each habitat from 1850 to 2400 m, 20 quadrats were established along four transects, and the above-ground vegetation and the germinable seed banks were determined. Results show that the similarity between seed bank and vegetation was lowest in the ecotone located at intermediate altitudes.Together with the contrasting highest density and species diversity of seeds at these altitudes, the ecotonal role of this habitat was confirmed.We found evidence that lower altitudes could act as storage for seeds of some species growing at higher altitudes; the role of the ecotone was more prominent as a reserve for the meadow plant seeds than the role of the forest as a reserve for seeds of the meadow and ecotone habitats. Soil seed banks, particularly from the ecotone, can be used for restoring vegetation in some degraded sites.

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Soil seed bank characteristics in relation to land use systems and distance from water in a semi-arid rangeland of southern Ethiopia

Cited by 53 publications

References 47 publications

Species, functional groups and community structure in seed banks of the arid Nama Karoo: Grazing impacts and implications for rangeland restoration

Species, functional groups and community structure in seed banks of the arid Nama Karoo: Grazing impacts and implications for rangeland restoration

Short-term abandonment of human disturbances in Zagros Oak forest ecosystems: Effects on secondary succession of soil seed bank and aboveground vegetation

Comparison of soil seed banks of habitats distributed along an altitudinal gradient in northern Iran

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