Factors driving seed bank diversity in wetlands of a large river floodplain

SCHNEIDER BERENICE; FLORENCIA L. ZILLI ; FACELLI, FLORENCIA; CAMPANA MIRTA

WETLANDS

SPRINGER

Lugar: Berlin; Año: 2020

0277-5212

Soil seed banks serve as reservoirs of taxonomic and genetic diversity and can buffer the effect of perturbations on plant communities, and thus are critical for community resilience. We studied the relationship of seed bank abundance and richness with different hydrological attributes, evaluated beta diversity patterns among wetlands in the Middle Paraná River floodplain, and experimentally explored soil germination. Seed abundance was positively related to drought intensity and, along with richness, negatively related to drought and flood frequency. Turnover and balanced variation in abundance had a higher contribution to the total beta diversity than nestedness and gradient patterns. Germination patterns varied between rooted and free-floating plants. Our study highlights the importance of drought and flood frequency, and of drought intensity in shaping seed bank diversity in floodplain wetlands. Furthermore, turnover and balanced variation in abundance, may be associated with the environmental heterogeneity of the floodplain, while nestedness may be associated with different dispersal abilities of species. Such information is important to understand how seed banks may respond to environmental change such as alteration of the hydrologic regime.