Abstract
Along the Fresh Lake causeway on San Salvador Island, the Bahamas, the seed bank was compared to the above ground vegetation in May 2006. Vegetation was dominated by a shrub canopy of Conocarpus erectus. A 49 m transect was run along the south side of the Fresh Lake causeway, and 10 secondary transects were randomly run from it towards Fresh Lake. Percent above ground cover was determined, and soil cores were taken along secondary transects at 0, 1, and 2 m. Percent above ground cover was calculated in 15 × 15 cm quadrats, and 6.0 cm diameter × 7.5 cm deep soil samples (n = 30) were collected. Species diversity was low, with only Borrichia arborescens (1.7 %), Sporobolus virginicus (16.8 %) and a member of the Poaceae (<1 %) representing aboveground vegetation. Only Conocarpus erectus represented the canopy. The majority of each quadrat along the secondary transects was bare ground. Percent above ground vegetation along the transects was determined and compared to number of seeds present. Only 43 (15,208 seeds/m2) Conocarpus erectus seeds were present in the entire seed bank, and were found at plots 2, 8, and 10. Shrubs of this species were found at plots 1, 2, 7, and 10. No seeds of any other species were found in any transect. Tidal action may be the main force in distributing seeds along the causeway and out of the sampled area. A second factor accounting for low seed numbers may have been that seeds germinated but seedlings died before being recruited into the canopy.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank Vincent Voegeli and personnel of the Gerace Research Centre, San Salvador, The Bahamas for their help and use of field station equipment and facilities. We also thank J. Forrest Meekins for her helpful comments preparing the manuscript, and Elmira College, Elmira, NY, USA for helping fund this research.
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Hanley, K.A., Walsh, B.M., Egan, T.P. (2016). The Seed Bank of a Hypersaline Shrub Community in the Bahamas. In: Khan, M., Boër, B., Ȫzturk, M., Clüsener-Godt, M., Gul, B., Breckle, SW. (eds) Sabkha Ecosystems. Tasks for Vegetation Science, vol 48. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27093-7_13
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