Edge effects on the realised soil seed bank along microclimatic gradients in temperate European forests

Abstract

Seed bank responses to different microclimates were studied in temperate forests.• Thermophilous forests showed a compositionally different edge vs interior seed bank. • Forest edges shifted the seedling community to a more light-demanding composition.• Soil translocation from up to lowland favoured the emergence of generalist plants.• Forest fragmentation should be prevented to conserve seed banks' forest specialists.

Soil seed bank responses to edge effects in temperate European forests

“…Such conditions favour the development of plant communities dominated by species that also occur outside forests, across a wide range of environmental gradients, defined as generalists (Marinšek et al, 2015). By contrast, the shady, humid and more stable microclimate of forest interiors prevents or limits their success (Gasperini et al, 2021; Normann et al, 2016) and is usually more suitable for shade‐tolerant species, referred to as forest specialists (Marinšek et al, 2015). Forest edges are also characterized by a higher seed influx of non‐forest species (Devlaeminck et al, 2005), and higher nitrogen deposition and carbon stocks (Remy et al, 2016), compared to forest interiors.…”

“…Directional changes in community composition can be summarized also via species' thermal niches into a floristic temperature index, which is a community weighted mean of species' temperature preferences (Vangansbeke et al, 2021). Changes in the relative abundance of warm adapted versus cool adapted species can be used as an indicator of the impacts of local temperature change on communities (Zellweger et al, 2020), and can also be applied to reveal cooler temperature preferences of seed bank communities in the interior than in the edge (Gasperini et al, 2021).…”

“…Changes in the relative abundance of warm adapted versus cool adapted species can be used as an indicator of the impacts of local temperature change on communities (Zellweger et al, 2020), and can also be applied to reveal cooler temperature preferences of seed bank communities in the interior than in the edge (Gasperini et al, 2021).…”

The European Forest Plant Species List (EuForPlant): Concept and applications

“…The current list was made publicly available on figshare in 2019 (Heinken et al, 2019, https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.8095217.v1), and has since been applied in several scientific publications, e.g., to assess the variation in plant species diversity and composition along edge‐to‐interior gradients in forests across Europe (Govaert et al, 2020), to study the migration of forest herbs along hedgerow corridors (Vanneste et al, 2020), to assess functional diversity of understorey plant communities in fragmented landscapes (Vanneste et al, 2019), to experimentally assess the effects of both macro‐ and microclimatic changes on understorey plants with contrasting degree of forest affinity (De Pauw et al, 2021), to model their population growth rates under a changing climate system (Sanczuk et al, 2021), and to characterize the seed bank in forests along various environmental gradients (Gasperini et al, 2021). Other potential applications of this list are: To study the effects of global environmental change (climate change, land‐use change, atmospheric pollution, biological invasions, etc.)…”

“…See Figure 4 for the reason of merging the categories 2.2 and O. Moreover, species classified as O necessarily have a 2.2 habitat preference in at least one region, otherwise they would not be part of this forest species list e.g., to assess the variation in plant species diversity and composition along edge-to-interior gradients in forests across Europe (Govaert et al, 2020), to study the migration of forest herbs along hedgerow corridors (Vanneste et al, 2020), to assess functional diversity of understorey plant communities in fragmented landscapes (Vanneste et al, 2019), to experimentally assess the effects of both macro-and microclimatic changes on understorey plants with contrasting degree of forest affinity (De Pauw et al, 2021), to model their population growth rates under a changing climate system (Sanczuk et al, 2021), and to characterize the seed bank in forests along various environmental gradients (Gasperini et al, 2021). Other potential applications of this list are:…”