Abstract

Aims

Our objective was to quantify the contributions of the seed bank and the established vegetation to the species composition, functional composition and diversity, and discuss the implications of these differences in regeneration and persistence of floodplain plant communities.

Methods

We sampled all ground cover vegetation up to 1.5 m height and seed bank in 25 plots (10 m × 1 m) distributed across five sites in dry and rainy seasons in a periodically flooded savanna in the Pantanal wetland, Brazil. We evaluated the soil seed bank by seedling emergence method.

Important Findings

The seed bank species had traits that conferred regeneration to the communities, while persistence traits characterized the vegetation. The seed bank had higher functional richness and lower functional evenness than the vegetation. The existence of different plant traits between seed bank and vegetation allowed the coexistence of species with functionally contrasting persistence and regeneration traits, which may help maintain functional diversity. It may allow the community to be more resilient when dealing with different environmental filters such as drought, fire and flood.

中文翻译：

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种子库和植被中物种之间的差异有助于保持可泛滥的新热带稀树草原的功能多样性

摘要

目的

我们的目标是量化种子库和已建立的植被对物种组成，功能组成和多样性的贡献，并讨论这些差异对洪泛区植物群落再生和持久性的影响。

方法

我们在巴西潘塔纳尔湿地的一次定期淹没的热带稀树草原中，对高至1.5 m高的所有地被植被和25个样地（10 m×1 m）中分布在五个地点的种子库进行了采样，这些地点分布在干旱和雨季的五个地点。我们通过幼苗出苗方法评估了土壤种子库。

重要发现

种子库物种具有赋予群落更新的特征，而持久性则具有植被特征。种子库比植被具有更高的功能丰富度和更低的功能均匀度。种子库和植被之间存在不同的植物性状，从而使具有持久性和再生性功能相反的物种并存，这可能有助于维持功能性多样性。在应对干旱，火灾和洪水等不同的环境过滤器时，它可以使社区变得更有弹性。