More warm‐adapted species in soil seed banks than in herb layer plant communities across Europe

Abstract

1. Responses to climate change have often been found to lag behind the rate of warming that has occurred. In addition to dispersal limitation potentially restricting spread at leading range margins, the persistence of species in new and unsuitable conditions is thought to be responsible for apparent time-lags. Soil seed banks can allow plant communities to temporarily buffer unsuitable en-vironmental conditions, but their potential to slow responses to long-term climate change is largely unknown. As local forest cover can also buffer the effects of a warming climate, it is important to understand how seed banks might interact with land cover to mediate community responses to climate change.3. We first related species-level seed bank persistence and distribution-derived climatic niches for 840 plant species. We then used a database of plant community data from grasslands, forests and intermediate successional habitats from across

Spatiotemporal patterns of microclimatic buffering in relict alpine communities

“…These predictions highlight the need for long‐term monitoring of microclimate and snow patterns, ideally complemented with the assistance of time series of satellite images, together with physiological, genetic, and demographic approaches. It will be also necessary to identify critical plant life stages responding to microclimatic conditions, since only a few studies have tackled this question in adult plant survival, seed dispersal and persistence (Auffret et al., 2023), germination (Shimono & Kudo, 2005) or seedling survival (Rosbakh et al., 2022; Gya et al., 2023). Such studies will be especially informative in alpine relict communities reduced to small alpine areas, which are more likely to experience local extinctions (Körner & Hiltbrunner, 2021).…”

Soil seed bank richness, abundance and density across spatial scales and global biomes

“…In non-arable systems, only the temperate broadleaf and mixed forest biome had a mean predicted seed density higher than the global average, with other temperate biomes and the mediterranean biome slightly below. In the European flora, it has been shown that species with relatively warm, southerly distributions are more likely to have persistent seeds than cooladapted species (Auffret et al 2023). In warmer regions, where the extreme climatic events may be more frequent, the soil seed bank can play an important role in vegetation recovery and stability (DeMalach et al 2023;Lloret et al 2012).…”

“…By reflecting previous habitat conditions following land-use change (Auffret & Cousins 2011;Karlík & Poschlod 2014), seed banks are often studied in relation to the potential for ecological restoration of target communities Török et al 2018). As the climate warms, seed banks are expected to contribute to the maintenance of species richness (Plue et al 2021), although community composition may shift due to the higher seed longevity exhibited by warm-adapted and widespread species (Auffret et al 2023). However, the abundance of seeds in the seed bank is predicted to decline with increasing soil temperatures due to a combination of increased rates of germination and seed degradation (Ooi et al 2009).…”

“…For example, in arid systems dominated by drought, it is advantageous to have an annual life history and form persistent seed banks to buffer annual changes in water availability (DeMalach et al 2021;Friedman 2020). Even in temperate Europe, species with warmer distributions have been found to have a higher seed bank persistence than more northerly species (Auffret et al 2023). In tropical systems, high seed loss due to pathogens and seed predation means that long-term seed banks are often depleted (Dalling et al 1998;Skoglund 1992).…”