Biological soil crusts inhibit seed germination in a mesic pine barren ecosystem
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Ecology, Soil Science
- Keywords
- Bryophytes, Crypotogamic crust, Germination assay, Inland sand plain, Lupinus perennis, Lespedeza capitata
- Copyright
- © 2018 Gilbert et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2018. Biological soil crusts inhibit seed germination in a mesic pine barren ecosystem. PeerJ Preprints 6:e27354v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.27354v1
Abstract
Aims - Biological soil crusts (BSCs) are known to affect plants’ germination and seedling establishment, but the ecological role of BSCs in more mesic climates are not so well-known. We tested the effects of moss-crusted versus uncrusted soils on seed germination dynamics in a temperate pine barren ecosystem.
Methods - We conducted a 35-day laboratory assay of seed germination on moss-crusted soils versus uncrusted soils from the Albany (NY) Pine Bush Preserve. We tested total seed germination and the number of days to 50% of total germination (T50) of two herbaceous perennial forb species in each soil type.
Results - Three and five times more seeds germinated on uncrusted soil than on crusted soil for bush clover (Lespedeza capitata) and wild lupine (Lupinus perennis), respectively. Seeds of both species also germinated approximately 10 days earlier on uncrusted soil than on crusted soil.
Conclusions - This study, and others in similar habitats, show that BSCs in mesic ecosystems can influence germination and other early life-history stages of plants. We hope that further study of the interactions between BSCs and vascular plants in mesic climates will contribute to our understanding of the ecology of BSCs outside the arid and semiarid climates where they are more extensively studied.
Author Comment
Version 1 of a Preprint to be submitted for publication in 2019
Supplemental Information
Figure 1 – Boxplots of (A) total seed germination and (B) number of days to 50% of total germination (T50) for each species x soil type combination
Total seed germination was lower, and T50 was longer, on crusted soils compared to uncrusted soils. A similar number of seeds germinated for each species, but bush clover seeds germinated significantly faster than lupine seeds.
Figure 2 – Cumulative number of germinated seeds for bush clover and lupine on each soil type during the 35 day experiment
Table 1: Analysis of variance comparing the effects of Soil Type and species and the interaction between the two on total germination and time to 50% of total germination (T50)
Significant p-values are indicated by bold text.