Seed Viability in Stockpiled Topsoil on a Surface Mine in Appalachia

摘要

The potential of seed banks to enhance native plantspecies diversity on surface mine land was testedrecently by relocating topsoil from an active coal mineto another mine site that was being reclaimed, 65 km tothe east (Hall et al. 2009). Moving soil to another siteimmediately after it is stripped from the land to be mined,however, may not be practical in many surface mine opera-tions. Moreover, the advantage of having seeds geneticallyadapted to the specific site is lost. Thus a more practicalapproach may be to stockpile the soil on site during themining operation and subsequently place it back on thesite during reclamation months or years later. The effectsthat this approach may have on seed viability, however, arepoorly understood.