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Seasonal Dynamics of the Plant Community and Soil Seed Bank along a Successional Gradient in a Subalpine Meadow on the Tibetan Plateau
BACKGROUND: Knowledge about how change the importance of soil seed bank and relationship between seed mass and abundance during vegetation succession is crucial for understanding vegetation dynamics. Many studies have been conducted, but their ecological mechanisms of community assembly are not full...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2013
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3823802/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24244655 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0080220 |
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author | Ma, Miaojun Zhou, Xianhui Qi, Wei Liu, Kun Jia, Peng Du, Guozhen |
author_facet | Ma, Miaojun Zhou, Xianhui Qi, Wei Liu, Kun Jia, Peng Du, Guozhen |
author_sort | Ma, Miaojun |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Knowledge about how change the importance of soil seed bank and relationship between seed mass and abundance during vegetation succession is crucial for understanding vegetation dynamics. Many studies have been conducted, but their ecological mechanisms of community assembly are not fully understood. METHODOLOGY: We examined the seasonal dynamics of the vegetation and soil seed bank as well as seed size distribution along a successional gradient. We also explored the potential role of the soil seed bank in plant community regeneration, the relationship between seed mass and species abundance, and the relative importance of deterministic and stochastic processes along a successional gradient. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Species richness of seed bank increased (shallow layer and the total) and seed density decreased (each layer and the total) significantly with succession. Species richness and seed density differed significantly between different seasons and among soil depths. Seed mass showed a significant negative relationship with relative abundance in the earliest successional stage, but the relationships were not significant in later stages. Seed mass showed no relationship with relative abundance in the whole successional series in seed bank. Results were similar for both July 2005 and April 2006. CONCLUSIONS: The seed mass and abundance relationship was determined by a complex interaction between small and larger seeded species and environmental factors. Both stochastic processes and deterministic processes were important determinants of the structure of the earliest stage. The importance of seed bank decreased with succession. The restoration of abandoned farmed and grazed meadows to the species-rich subalpine meadow in Tibetan Plateau can be successfully achieved from the soil seed bank. However, at least 20 years are required to fully restore an abandoned agricultural meadow to a natural mature subalpine meadow. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3823802 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2013 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-38238022013-11-15 Seasonal Dynamics of the Plant Community and Soil Seed Bank along a Successional Gradient in a Subalpine Meadow on the Tibetan Plateau Ma, Miaojun Zhou, Xianhui Qi, Wei Liu, Kun Jia, Peng Du, Guozhen PLoS One Research Article BACKGROUND: Knowledge about how change the importance of soil seed bank and relationship between seed mass and abundance during vegetation succession is crucial for understanding vegetation dynamics. Many studies have been conducted, but their ecological mechanisms of community assembly are not fully understood. METHODOLOGY: We examined the seasonal dynamics of the vegetation and soil seed bank as well as seed size distribution along a successional gradient. We also explored the potential role of the soil seed bank in plant community regeneration, the relationship between seed mass and species abundance, and the relative importance of deterministic and stochastic processes along a successional gradient. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Species richness of seed bank increased (shallow layer and the total) and seed density decreased (each layer and the total) significantly with succession. Species richness and seed density differed significantly between different seasons and among soil depths. Seed mass showed a significant negative relationship with relative abundance in the earliest successional stage, but the relationships were not significant in later stages. Seed mass showed no relationship with relative abundance in the whole successional series in seed bank. Results were similar for both July 2005 and April 2006. CONCLUSIONS: The seed mass and abundance relationship was determined by a complex interaction between small and larger seeded species and environmental factors. Both stochastic processes and deterministic processes were important determinants of the structure of the earliest stage. The importance of seed bank decreased with succession. The restoration of abandoned farmed and grazed meadows to the species-rich subalpine meadow in Tibetan Plateau can be successfully achieved from the soil seed bank. However, at least 20 years are required to fully restore an abandoned agricultural meadow to a natural mature subalpine meadow. Public Library of Science 2013-11-11 /pmc/articles/PMC3823802/ /pubmed/24244655 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0080220 Text en © 2013 Ma, et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Ma, Miaojun Zhou, Xianhui Qi, Wei Liu, Kun Jia, Peng Du, Guozhen Seasonal Dynamics of the Plant Community and Soil Seed Bank along a Successional Gradient in a Subalpine Meadow on the Tibetan Plateau |
title | Seasonal Dynamics of the Plant Community and Soil Seed Bank along a Successional Gradient in a Subalpine Meadow on the Tibetan Plateau |
title_full | Seasonal Dynamics of the Plant Community and Soil Seed Bank along a Successional Gradient in a Subalpine Meadow on the Tibetan Plateau |
title_fullStr | Seasonal Dynamics of the Plant Community and Soil Seed Bank along a Successional Gradient in a Subalpine Meadow on the Tibetan Plateau |
title_full_unstemmed | Seasonal Dynamics of the Plant Community and Soil Seed Bank along a Successional Gradient in a Subalpine Meadow on the Tibetan Plateau |
title_short | Seasonal Dynamics of the Plant Community and Soil Seed Bank along a Successional Gradient in a Subalpine Meadow on the Tibetan Plateau |
title_sort | seasonal dynamics of the plant community and soil seed bank along a successional gradient in a subalpine meadow on the tibetan plateau |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3823802/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24244655 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0080220 |
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