Tropical Pioneer Seeds Have Different Dormancy‐Defense Syndromes That Help Them to Survive in the Soil Seed Bank

摘要

Seeds of tropical pioneer trees use strategies to overcome the two challengesthey face after dispersion: (1) stay alive until the right conditions to grow into a newplant occur and (2) avoid being eaten by predators or decayed by soil microbes.Many of the seedlings that are able to grow and survive come from seeds longburied in the soil. For the first time, we are making the connection between seeddormancy—the characteristics that make it possible for a seed to wait until envi-ronmental conditions are suitable and seed defenses—the characteristics the seeduses to avoid being eaten or decayed. We found that overall, pioneer tree specieshave three different strategies to survive in the soil. Species that adopt each ofthese strategies share common characteristics or seed-defense syndromes.