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Seed bank composition and above-ground vegetation in response to grazing in sub-Mediterranean oak forests (NW Greece)

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Abstract

We investigate the persistent soil seed bank composition and its relation to the above-ground flora of grazed and non-grazed sub-Mediterranean deciduous oak forests of NW Greece. Twenty-eight taxa were recorded in the soil seed bank and 83 taxa (70 taxa in plots of seed bank sampling) in the above-ground vegetation. The dominant tree species and many woodland species found in the above-ground vegetation were absent from the soil seed bank. Similarity between the soil seed bank and the above-ground vegetation decreased with grazing, and grazing led to a decrease of species richness in above-ground vegetation and soil seed bank. Beta diversity of vegetation among grazed and among non-grazed plots did not differ, but was significantly higher between grazed and non-grazed areas. Beta diversity of the soil seed bank declined with grazing. When applying classification tree and logistic regression analyses, non-grazed forest sites are clearly differentiated by the presence of Phillyrea latifolia, Euphorbia amygdaloides and Brachypodium sylvaticum. PCA ordination of above-ground species composition reflected a gradient from sites grazed by ruminants to non-grazed sites, but no clear structure was detected in the seed bank.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank ‘Bourazani Environmental Park Enterprise’ for kindly hosting Evgenia Chaideftou during the research periods. Special thanks are also due to Dr. Thomas Raus for his support on the seedlings identification and confirmation. Funding by the International Bureau of the BMBF (GRC 01/007) and the Hellenic General Secretariat for Research and Technology in the framework of the Greek-German joint Research and Technology Programme is gratefully acknowledged. Thanks are also due to Sandy Coles (M.Sc.) for linguistic revision of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental and Natural Resources Management, University of Ioannina, Seferi 2, 30100, Agrinio, Greece

    Evgenia Chaideftou, Athanasios Kallimanis & Panayotis Dimopoulos

  2. Faculty of Biology, Department of Botany, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Panepistimiopolis, 15784, Athens, Greece

    Costas A. Thanos

  3. Albrecht von Haller Institute of Plant Sciences, Georg-August University of Göttingen, Untere Karspüle 2, 37073, Göttingen, Germany

    Erwin Bergmeier

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  1. Evgenia Chaideftou
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  2. Costas A. Thanos
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  3. Erwin Bergmeier
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Correspondence to Panayotis Dimopoulos.

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Chaideftou, E., Thanos, C.A., Bergmeier, E. et al. Seed bank composition and above-ground vegetation in response to grazing in sub-Mediterranean oak forests (NW Greece). Plant Ecol 201, 255–265 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11258-008-9548-1

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