How sand burial affects seed germination and storage of psammophytes and non-psammophytes?

摘要

Understanding how sand burial affects seed germination and longevity of psammophytes and non-psammophytes is helpful to elucidate plant strategies and formation mechanisms of soil seed banks in sand dune ecosystems. Compared with non-psammophytes, psammophytes have a long-term evolution of adaptation to sand burial. Besides, annuals rely mainly on seed banks for their population recruitment. Therefore, we hypothesize that seeds of (1) annual non-psammophytes germinate in a short period, with a long longevity, (2) annual psammophytes germinate during a long period, with a long longevity, (3) perennial non-psammophytes germinate in a short period, with a short longevity, and (4) perennial psammophytes germinate in a long period, with a short longevity. Furthermore, within the same plant life form and functional type, we hypothesize that seed germination is negatively correlated with sand burial depth and time.