Colonisation theory predicts that large-seeded species are more likely to show increased seedling recruitment in response to seed addition than are small-seeded species. This is both because their seedlings tend to have better survivorship potential, and because their background density of germinating seedlings tends to be lower. We tested this hypothesis by combining data from a recent review ...

Nitrogen (N) remobilization from reserves to sinks is essential for seedling establishment and seed production. Cytosolic glutamine synthetase (GS1) is up-regulated during both seed germination and seed filling in plants. However, the specific roles of the individual GS1 isogenes with respect to N remobilization, early seedling vigour, and final seed productivity are not known. In this study, i...

There is a growing consensus that the relative constraints of seed limitation and establishment limitation in recruitment strongly influence abundance patterns in plant communities. Although these constraints have direct relevance to coexistence, most investigations utilize a seed addition approach that offers limited insight into these dynamics. Here we report the results of an assembly experi...

Globally, seagrass beds have been recognized as critical yet declining coastal habitats. To mitigate seagrass losses, seagrass restorations have been conducted in worldwide over the past two decades. Seed utilization is considered to be an important approach in seagrass restoration efforts. In this study, we investigated the effects of salinity and temperature on seed germination, seedling esta...

Seedling recruitment limitations create a demographic bottleneck that largely determines the viability and structure of plant populations and communities, and pose a core restriction on the colonization of novel habitat. We use a shadetolerant, invasive grass, Microstegium vimineum, to examine the interplay between seed and establishment limitations – phenomena that together determine recruitme...

1 The role of seed limitation in tropical forests remains uncertain owing to the scarcity of experimental evidence. We performed seed addition experiments to assess seed limitation for 32 shade-tolerant tropical forest species and monitored the natural seed rain of 25 of these species for 17 years. 2 One, two or five seeds were sown into 0.0079-m 2 plots for large( n = 5 species), medium( n = 5...

Studies simultaneously evaluating the importance of safe-site and seed limitation for plant establishment are rare, particularly in human-modified landscapes. We used spatially explicit neighborhood models together with data from 10 0.5-ha mapped census plots in a fragmented landscape spanning 1000 km2 to (1) evaluate the relative importance of seed production, dispersal, and safe-site limitati...

Long-distance seed dispersal (LDD) is considered a crucial determinant of tree distributions, but its effects depend on demographic processes that enable seeds to establish into adults and that remain poorly understood at large spatial scales. We estimated rates of seed arrival, germination, and survival and growth for a canopy tree species (Miliusa horsfieldii), in a landscape ranging from eve...

Dispersal is an important factor in plant community assembly, but assembly studies seldom include information on actual dispersal into communities, i.e. the local propagule pool. The aim of this study was to determine which factors influence plant community assembly by focusing on two phases of the assembly process: the dispersal phase and the establishment phase. At 12 study sites in grazed ex...