Dormancy and germination requirements determine the timing and magnitude of seedling emergence, with important consequences for seedling survival and growth. Physiological dormancy is the most widespread form of dormancy in flowering plants, yet the seed ecology of species with this dormancy type is poorly understood in fire-prone vegetation. The role of seasonal temperatures as germination cue...

Influences from the parental environment can be transmitted to offspring via parental effects and may profoundly affect the phenotype expressed in subsequent generations, for example, germination season in plants (e.g. Galloway 2001), offspring size (e.g. Naguib & Gil 2005; Taborsky 2006), natal dispersal (e.g. Tschirren et al. 2007) and egg quality (Blount et al. 2002) in several bird and fish...