Seed bank composition and above-ground vegetation in response to grazing in sub-Mediterranean oak forests (NW Greece) |
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Authors: | Evgenia Chaideftou Costas A Thanos Erwin Bergmeier Athanasios Kallimanis Panayotis Dimopoulos |
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Institution: | 1.Department of Environmental and Natural Resources Management,University of Ioannina,Agrinio,Greece;2.Faculty of Biology, Department of Botany,National and Kapodistrian University of Athens,Athens,Greece;3.Albrecht von Haller Institute of Plant Sciences,Georg-August University of G?ttingen,G?ttingen,Germany |
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Abstract: | We investigate the persistent soil seed bank composition and its relation to the above-ground flora of grazed and non-grazed
sub-Mediterranean deciduous oak forests of NW Greece. Twenty-eight taxa were recorded in the soil seed bank and 83 taxa (70
taxa in plots of seed bank sampling) in the above-ground vegetation. The dominant tree species and many woodland species found
in the above-ground vegetation were absent from the soil seed bank. Similarity between the soil seed bank and the above-ground
vegetation decreased with grazing, and grazing led to a decrease of species richness in above-ground vegetation and soil seed
bank. Beta diversity of vegetation among grazed and among non-grazed plots did not differ, but was significantly higher between
grazed and non-grazed areas. Beta diversity of the soil seed bank declined with grazing. When applying classification tree
and logistic regression analyses, non-grazed forest sites are clearly differentiated by the presence of Phillyrea latifolia, Euphorbia amygdaloides and Brachypodium sylvaticum. PCA ordination of above-ground species composition reflected a gradient from sites grazed by ruminants to non-grazed sites,
but no clear structure was detected in the seed bank. |
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Keywords: | Soil seed bank Wood pasture Grazing Browsing Deciduous oak forests Greece Wild boar Ruminants |
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