Effects of sheep exclusion on the soil seed bank and annual vegetation in chenopod shrublands of South Australia

Meissner, R.; Facelli, José M.

doi:10.1006/jare.1999.0515

Cited by 80 publications

(64 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Previous studies of passive restoration in degraded ecosystems have found that passive restoration had positive [14][15][16][17], neutral [18], or even negative effects [19] on the species composition and density of the soil seed bank, as well as on the species composition, density, coverage, and mean height of vegetation. The different results mainly depended on the variety in seed production and emergence capacity, plant growth and dispersal, and the ratio of weeds to grass across the different grasslands [15].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Soil Seed Bank and Plant Community Development in Passive Restoration of Degraded Sandy Grasslands

et al. 2016

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Abstract:To evaluate the efficacy of passive restoration on soil seed bank and vegetation recovery, we measured the species composition and density of the soil seed bank, as well as the species composition, density, coverage, and height of the extant vegetation in sites passively restored for 0, 4, 7, and 12 years (S0, S4, S7, and S12) in a degraded grassland in desert land. Compared with S0, three more species in the soil seed bank at depths of 0-30 cm and one more plant species in the community was detected in S12. Seed density within the topsoil (0-5 cm) was five times higher in S12 than that in S0. Plant densities in S7 and S12 were triple and quadruple than that in S0. Plant coverage was increased by 1.5 times (S4), double (S7), and triple (S12) compared with S0. Sørensen's index of similarity in species composition between the soil seed bank and the plant community were high (0.43-0.63), but it was lower in short-term restoration sites (S4 and S7) than that in no and long-term restoration sites (S0 and S12). The soil seed bank recovered more slowly than the plant community under passive restoration. Passive restoration is a useful method to recover the soil seed bank and vegetation in degraded grasslands.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Soil Seed Bank and Plant Community Development in Passive Restoration of Degraded Sandy Grasslands

et al. 2016

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“…For plant diversity, the results are also conflicting. Several studies reported no effects of grazing exclusion on plant diversity (Milchunas and Lauenroth, 1993;Meissner and Facelli, 1999), while a number of studies reported increases (Shaltout et al,1996;Eweg et al, 1998;Shang et al, 2008;Mayer et al, 2009;Jeddi and Chaieb, 2010;Zhao et al, 2011), and others reported decreases (Proulx and Mazumder, 1998;Dullinger et al, 2003;Altesor et al, 2005;Peco et al, 2005Peco et al, , 2006Wu et al, 2009), in plant diversity in response to grazing exclusion. Generally, the effectiveness of grazing exclusion denpends on its duration (Milchunas and Lauenroth, 1993;Su et al, 2005;Wu et al, 2008;McSherry and Ritchie, 2013), environmental conditions (Conant and Paustian, 2002;Derner and Schuman, 2007;Piñeiro et al, 2010; J.S.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of grazing exclusion on carbon sequestration and plant diversity in grasslands of China—A meta-analysis

Xiong

Shi

Zhang

et al. 2016

Ecological Engineering

163

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a b s t r a c tWidespread land degradation has strengthened the urgent need to restore overgrazing grasslands. China has implemented the program 'Returning Grazing Land to Grassland' (RGLG) through grazing exclusion by fence since 2003. Despite a lot of field experiments, there is still controversy on the effects of grazing exclusion on rangeland restoration, highlighting the need for synthetic analysis. We conducted a metaanalysis of 447 entries from 78 papers to analyze the spatiotemporal effects of grazing exclusion on plant diversity, productivity and soil carbon sequestration in the major RGLG-implemented provinces of China. Our results showed that, compared with the grazed sites, grazing exclusion significantly increased carbon stored in aboveground biomass, litter mass, belowground biomass and soils by 84.7%, 111.6%, 25.5% and 14.4%, respectively. Plant coverage, soil available nitrogen, soil available phosphorus and soil microbial biomass carbon increased by 52.0%, 21.7% 22.8% and 26.3%, respectively. However, grazing exclusion had little effects on recovering plant diversity in China's grasslands. Of the factors examined, climatic factors strongly modified the effects of grazing exclusion on ecosystem carbon stocks, for example, precipitation significantly amplified the positive effects. Grazing exclusion played a positive role in soil carbon sequestration in most grassland types except in temperate desert-steppe. But annual soil carbon sequestration rates decayed rapidly over time in both alpine meadow and temperate steppe. Short-term (≤5 years) grazing exclusion remarkably increased species richness, but not significantly in the long run. The threshold from neutral to negative effects of grazing exclusion on species evenness occurs after approximately ten years. Our findings provide evidence that grazing exclusion is an effective way to restore vegetation and sequestrate carbon in degraded grasslands, but not beneficial to plant diversity maintenance. The benefits of grazing exclusion are more effective in humid area than arid area. We suggest that grazing exclusion should be ceased after about six to ten years. Additionally, grazing exclusion should integrate with other appropriate management practices instead of operating on a stand-alone basis.

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“…The negative effect of grazing was also observed in a semi-arid Savanna of Ethiopia (Tessema et al 2012). Conversely, the elimination of some species in the aboveground vegetation via degradation and unsuitable conditions can cause the loss of soil seed stocks over the long term (Thompson and Grime 1979;Meissner and Facelli 1999). Other reasons explaining low similarity between aboveground vegetation and soil seed bank communities include delayed germination or extended dormancy under stress (Ma et al 2012), germination requirements, life-cycle pattern, reproductive strategy, and seed dispersal (Warr et al 1994).…”

Section: Species Composition In Aboveground Vegetation and Soil Seed mentioning

confidence: 92%

“…The number of germinants emerging from a soil seed bank depends on the characteristics of the study sites (Meissner and Facelli 1999). Different factors can slow or stop regeneration establishment in degraded sites such as low soil fertility, soil compaction (Curtis et al 1993;DeFalco et al 2009), lack of seed sources or excessive distance from seed sources (Cubiña and Aide 2001), and depleted soil seed banks (Mukhongo et al 2011).…”

Section: Seed Densitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Short-term abandonment of human disturbances in Zagros Oak forest ecosystems: Effects on secondary succession of soil seed bank and aboveground vegetation

Heydari

Pothier²,

Faramarzi

et al. 2014

Biodiversitas

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Heydari M, Pothier D, Faramarzi M, Merzaei J. 2014. Short-term abandonment of human disturbances in Zagros Oak forest ecosystems: Effects on secondary succession of soil seed . Zagros Oak forests in the west of Iran have been degraded by anthropogenic activities during many years and to fight against this degradation, several management strategies have been implemented. The principal objectives this study were to identify the characteristics of the soil seed bank and the aboveground vegetation that were affected by degradation and short-term abandonment of human disturbances and evaluate the potential of the soil seed bank to restore the degraded types after short-term conservation management. For that, we compared three types of Zagros forest ecosystem with different management regimes: (i) Long term disturbed type as LDT (also used and disturbed at the present), (ii) Short-term abandonment of human disturbances as SAD (5 years without human disturbances) and an undisturbed control or C (iii). We selected three replicates or stands per type. In the aboveground vegetation (ABV), 115, 72 and 51 species were recorded in C, SAD and LDT types, respectively, whereas in the soil seed bank (SSB) flora, 33, 19 and 12 plant taxa were observed in C, SAD and LDT types, respectively. The percentage of annuals increased in ABV and decreased in SSB with increasing site degradation with human activities such as animal husbandry in the forest edges. The percentage of perennial and biennial herbs decreased in ABV and increased in SSB with increasing site degradation. The Shannon index of the SSB decreased with increasing site degradation. The average seed density in the SAD type was significantly larger than that of the LDT type. DCA analysis showed that the seed bank flora of SAD and LDT types were relatively similar and differed from that of the C type. This indicates that a full recovery of degraded type in the oak forest ecosystem in the Zagros region cannot be based only on the soil seed bank present at the beginning of the protection period while a more complete recovery may require a longer period of protection.

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Effects of sheep exclusion on the soil seed bank and annual vegetation in chenopod shrublands of South Australia

Cited by 80 publications

References 29 publications

Soil Seed Bank and Plant Community Development in Passive Restoration of Degraded Sandy Grasslands

Soil Seed Bank and Plant Community Development in Passive Restoration of Degraded Sandy Grasslands

Effects of grazing exclusion on carbon sequestration and plant diversity in grasslands of China—A meta-analysis

Short-term abandonment of human disturbances in Zagros Oak forest ecosystems: Effects on secondary succession of soil seed bank and aboveground vegetation

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