Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
Abstract
Plant diversity and composition conservation is an important issue in ecosystem management. Therefore, management recommendations could be offered after a precise evaluation of diversity and composition. This study aimed to compare the results of two different methods namely seed germination and combined method for determining the composition of soil seed bank. For this purpose, soil samples were collected from two different depths (0-5 and 5-10cm) within 28 paired plots. The seed bank characteristics were then determined through two different methods. According to the obtained results, totally 68 plant species were identified in the seed bank. In both methods, therophytes had the highest relative abundance. However, geophytes and hemi-cryptophytes were significantly higher in germination method as compared with combined method. The similarity between above-ground vegetation and soil seed bank was totally low and it was higher in germination method as compared with combined method. Since plant composition plays a key role in ecosystem function, in this research it was tried to demonstrate the composition of soil seed bank as an important part of plant composition and an important factor in recovery of vegetation.
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