Strategies to persist in the community: Soil seed bank and aboveground vegetation in Patagonian pine plantations

URRETAVIZCAYA FLORENCIA; RAGO MELISA; DEFFOSE GUILLERMO; RAGO MELISA; DEFFOSE GUILLERMO; ORELLANA IVONNE; ORELLANA IVONNE; URRETAVIZCAYA FLORENCIA

APPLIED VEGETATION SCIENCE

WILEY-BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, INC

Año: 2020 vol. 3 p. 254 - 265

1402-2001

Conservation of biodiversity in forest plantations concerns because they usually cause negative effects on the planted ecosystem. The seed bank could play a role in the conservation by recruiting species depleted in the vegetation. To address this topic in Patagonian plantations located in steppes we asked: are the richness, abundance and composition of the steppe vegetation and seed bank affected by plantations? Is the composition between the vegetation and seed bank similar in the plantations and in the steppes? NW of Chubut province, Patagonia, Argentina. We selected three plantations surrounded by steppe and delimited three sectors: steppe, plantation edge and plantation interior. We compared richness and abundance by species origin and growth form among sectors for the aboveground vegetation and soil seed bank compartments, using generalized mixed linear models. We compared composition for each compartment and between them using permutational multivariate analysis of variance and non-metric multidimensional scaling.We found a decrease in vegetation richness and abundance, and changes in composition from the steppe to the plantation interior. Richness and abundance of the seed bank did not show differences among the steppe and plantation sectors, although composition was different among them. Composition was different between vegetation and seed bank. Native perennial herbs and shrubs predominated in the vegetation and exotic annual herbs in the seed bank.