To provide more insights into the responses of the soil seed bank and vegetation to human disturbance intensity, we selected four land use types, including: native grassland (no human disturbance), abandoned artificial grassland (light human disturbance), artificial grassland (moderate human disturbance), and farmland (severe human disturbance) in a semi-arid climate of northern China. The spec...

Seed banking remains a cornerstone in the conservation of plant genetic resources. To be successful, it relies on the collecting and banking of high-quality seeds. In 1995 there was relatively little guidance available to seed collectors (especially of wild plant species), who had to make decisions in the field about what to collect and how to handle collected material. Since then, research int...

—Pocket gophers have the potential to alter the dynamics of grasslands by creating mounds that bury existing vegetation and locally reset succession. Gopher mounds may provide safe sites for less competitive species, potentially increasing both species diversity and vegetation heterogeneity (spatial variation in species composition). We compared species composition, diversity and heterogeneity ...

Seed processing and dormancy break treatments are recommended for rendering seeds restoration-ready. Conversely, fruit structures seed coats may protect from environmental harm in the field. We evaluated effects of (by either keeping or extracting seeds) and/or scarification (of physically dormant on seedling emergence establishment 10 legume tree species tropical forests savannas Central Brazi...

Use of improved seeds has a vital role in enhancing agricultural production. Agriculture extension has implemented farmers’ managed seed multiplication program at the community level to ensure efficient supply of improved seeds. Several success and failure cases of seed multiplication through farmers' organizations were experienced. Therefore, a case study was conducted in the western terai reg...

Immigration rates of species into communities are widely understood to influence community diversity, which in turn is widely expected to influence the susceptibility of ecosystems to species invasion. For a given community, however, immigration processes may impact diversity by means of two separable components: the number of species represented in seed inputs and the density of seed per speci...

The success or failure of many organisms to respond to the challenges of habitat destruction and a warming climate lies in the ability of plant species to disperse between isolated habitats or to migrate to new ranges. European semi-natural grasslands represent one of the world’s most species-rich habitats at small scales, but agricultural intensification during the 20th century has meant that ...

Mexico is home to 40% of the pine species in world. By year 2050, 20% Mexican forests could be lost because climate change and other human-related activities. In this paper, we determine potential areas for seed collecting four genus Pinus its ex situ economic value under different future Climate Change Scenarios (CCS). The analyzed were oocarpa Schiede Schltdl, P. rudis Endl., culminícola Andr...