Provenance selection plays a major role for the afforestation success, resilience and persistence of forests into the future. Understanding the germination response to water potential and temperature among provenances is crucial for forest restoration initiatives. However, afforestation programs often neglect the seed germination traits from a selected provenance, threatening natural or artificial regeneration in future. In this study, we assessed the impact of water potential (0 and -0.2 MPa) and temperature (20, 25, and 30°C) on germination of Pinus yunnanensis seeds from 15 provenances. We found a clear effect of seed provenance on the germination percentage and mean germination time. In general, the lower water potential (-0.2 MPa) led to a reduction of germination percentage for most provenances, especially at 30°C; and the higher temperature (30°C) and water potential (0 MPa) resulted in low mean germination time. Germination percentage and mean germination time responses to water potential and temperature varied among provenances. We observed that germination percentage was significantly positively correlated with annual mean temperature, mean temperature of driest quarter and seed mass associated with the provenance, but significantly negatively correlated with annual mean precipitation, and mean precipitation of driest quarter and wettest quarter. Significant relationships between mean germination time and those variables were contrary to germination percentage. However, the significance of these relationships varied in all the treatments. Therefore, we conclude that germination of P. yunnanensis seeds from different provenances adapt diversely to abiotic stresses; this is likely to be important for provenance selection in future reforestation. Our results highlight that future re-forestation efforts need to critically evaluate larger numbers of provenances to understand thresholds limiting performance and establishment success.

种源选择对造林成功，未来森林的复原力和持久性起着重要作用。了解种源对水势和温度的发芽反应对于森林恢复计划至关重要。但是，造林计划通常会忽略选定出处的种子发芽特性，威胁将来的自然或人工再生。在这项研究中，我们评估了水势（0和-0.2 MPa）和温度（20、25和30°C）对云南松发芽的影响15种来源的种子。我们发现种子出处对发芽率和平均发芽时间有明显影响。通常，较低的水势（-0.2 MPa）导致大多数种源的发芽率降低，尤其是在30°C时；较高的温度（30°C）和水势（0 MPa）导致平均发芽时间短。发芽率和平均发芽时间对水势和温度的响应因种源而异。我们观察到，发芽率与年平均温度，最干燥季的平均温度和与种源相关的种子质量显着正相关，但与年平均降水量，最干燥的季和最湿季的平均降水显着负相关。平均发芽时间与这些变量之间的显着关系与发芽率相反。但是，这些关系的重要性在所有治疗方法中都不同。因此，我们得出结论，不同来源的云南松种子对非生物胁迫的适应性不同。这对于将来造林的物源选择很重要。我们的结果表明，未来的重新造林工作需要严格评估大量出处，以了解限制绩效和建树成功的门槛。