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Seed bank of Littorella uniflora (L.) Asch. in the Czech Republic, Central Europe: does burial depth and sediment type influence seed germination?

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Abstract

Littorella uniflora (Plantaginaceae) is a scarce and declining aquatic plant in Europe. Its population has been strongly reduced by changes in fishpond management (eutrophication) in the Czech Republic since the 1950s. We studied its seed bank in both recent (n = 8) and historical localities (the last found from 1972 to 2000; n = 10) and tested the effects of sediment type and burial depth on seed germination using extracted seeds from two recent populations. The seeds were found in 60% of the historical localities, mostly in low densities (≤6 seeds per 3.75 l of sediment), and also in 100% of the recent localities in various densities (8–1390 seeds per 3.75 l of sediment); however, low germination rates (0–13.3%) were estimated. The seeds germinated best on wet filter paper, followed by nutrient-rich fishpond sediment, but poorly on sand mixed with different substrates. Burial depth significantly affected seed germination. The seeds germinated only on the soil surface and at the depth of 1 cm but no seed germinated at the depth of 3 and 5 cm. Besides low water transparency, both high rate of sediment accumulation and the absence of summer drainage may endanger L. uniflora populations in fishponds.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the Grants No. 20144224, 20154213 from the Internal Grant Agency of the Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague. It was also partly supported by the Long-term research development project no. RVO 67985939. The monitoring of the recent localities was supported by EEA and Norway grants (project nr. MGSII-11) in 2015. The authors are most grateful to Dr. Kateřina Šumberová and Dr. Lubomír Adamec for their valuable and helpful comments on the first version of the manuscript. We also thank two anonymous referees for their valuable comments. Thanks are also due to Jana Kinský for English revision.

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  1. Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences, Kamýcká 129, Prague 6, Czech Republic

    Jan Kolář, Pavel Jakubec & Jan Vymazal

  2. Institute of Botany, Czech Academy of Sciences, Dukelská 135, Třeboň, Czech Republic

    Andrea Kučerová

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  1. Jan Kolář
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Correspondence to Jan Kolář.

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Experiments were done on the critically endangered species and its parts; therefore, the permission from the Czech Ministry of Environment was needed. Numbers of the authorizations are SR/0008/TR/2014_3 and KUJI 33224/2014.

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Kolář, J., Kučerová, A., Jakubec, P. et al. Seed bank of Littorella uniflora (L.) Asch. in the Czech Republic, Central Europe: does burial depth and sediment type influence seed germination?. Hydrobiologia 794, 347–358 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-017-3109-3

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