Seeds of change: characterizing the soil seed bank of a migrating salt marsh.

ABSTRACT:

Background and aims

The capacity for dispersal to promote or hinder species' responses to global change remains a major question in ecology. One ecosystem experiencing rapid change is the tidal marsh, which is migrating inland in response to accelerated sea level rise. Few studies to date have investigated the ecological dynamics that impact this large-scale migration. Seed dispersal and persistence in the soil seed bank is a component that can be strongly indicative of community trajectories. With this in mind, the aim of our study was to characterize the germinable seed bank across a marsh-forest ecotone in the Chesapeake Bay.

Methods

Soil samples were collected across transects that ran from the high marsh to the coastal loblolly pine forest in a brackish marsh in Blackwa

SUBMITTER: Kottler EJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7442344 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature