For physiologically dormant (PD) species in fire-prone environments, dormancy can be both complex due to the interaction between fire and seasonal cues, and extremely deep due to long intervals between recruitment events. Due to this complexity, there are knowledge gaps particularly surrounding the dormancy depth and cues of long-lived perennial PD species. This can be problematic for both in situ and ex situ species management. We used germination experiments that tested seasonal temperature, smoke, dark and heat for 18 PD shrub species distributed across temperate fire-prone Australia and assessed how germination was correlated with environmental factors associated with their home environments. We found extremely high levels of dormancy, with only eight species germinating above 10% and three species producing no germination at all. Seven of these eight species had quite specific seasonal temperature requirements and/or very strong responses to smoke cues. The maximum germination for each species was positively correlated with the mean temperature of the source population but negatively correlated with rainfall seasonality and driest months. The strong dependence on a smoke cue for some of the study species, along with examples from other studies, provides evidence that an obligate smoke response could be a fire-adapted germination cue. Germination response correlated with rainfall season of the source populations is a pattern which has often been assumed but little comparative data across sites with different rainfall seasonality exists. Further investigation of a broader range of species from different rainfall season environments would help to elucidate this knowledge gap.

中文翻译：

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对 18 种生理休眠澳大利亚本土物种的调查：发芽反应、环境相关性和对保护的影响

对于火灾多发环境中的生理休眠 (PD) 物种，由于火灾和季节性线索之间的相互作用，休眠可能很复杂，并且由于招募事件之间的间隔很长，休眠可能非常深。由于这种复杂性，特别是围绕长寿的多年生 PD 物种的休眠深度和线索存在知识空白。这对双方都可能有问题原位和异地物种管理。我们使用发芽实验测试了分布在澳大利亚温带火灾易发地区的 18 种 PD 灌木物种的季节性温度、烟雾、黑暗和热量，并评估了发芽与家庭环境相关的环境因素之间的关系。我们发现休眠率极高，只有 8 个物种的发芽率超过 10%，3 个物种根本没有发芽。这八个物种中有七个具有非常特定的季节性温度要求和/或对烟雾线索的非常强烈的反应。每个物种的最大发芽率与源种群的平均温度呈正相关，但与降雨季节性和最干旱月份呈负相关。一些研究物种对烟雾提示的强烈依赖，以及来自其他研究的例子，提供了证据表明，一种强制性的烟雾反应可能是一种适应火的萌发线索。与源种群的降雨季节相关的发芽响应是一种经常被假设的模式，但在具有不同降雨季节的地点之间几乎没有比较数据。对来自不同雨季环境的更广泛物种的进一步调查将有助于阐明这一知识差距。