Seed predation in a Mediterranean pasture: can ants modify the floristic composition of soil seed banks?

Ants may play an important role on vegetation dynamics, especially in arid and semiarid environments, where they can consume a high proportion of the produced seeds. Although some works have analysed the influence of seed predation by ants on the density of vegetation in Mediterranean pastures, ther...

Descripción completa

Guardado en:

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales:	ESPIGARES,TÍSCAR, LÓPEZ-PINTOR,ANTONIO
Lenguaje:	English
Publicado:	Sociedad de Biología de Chile 2005
Materias:	annual pasture ant exclusion predation soil seed bank spatial heterogeneity
Acceso en línea:	http://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0716-078X2005000400002
Etiquetas:	Agregar Etiqueta Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!

id	oai:scielo:S0716-078X2005000400002
record_format	dspace
spelling	oai:scielo:S0716-078X20050004000022006-03-16Seed predation in a Mediterranean pasture: can ants modify the floristic composition of soil seed banks?ESPIGARES,TÍSCARLÓPEZ-PINTOR,ANTONIO annual pasture ant exclusion predation soil seed bank spatial heterogeneity Ants may play an important role on vegetation dynamics, especially in arid and semiarid environments, where they can consume a high proportion of the produced seeds. Although some works have analysed the influence of seed predation by ants on the density of vegetation in Mediterranean pastures, there are no studies on the influence of ant activity upon the floristic composition of the vegetation and the soil seed banks in this kind of ecosystem. We have studied the effect of ant exclusion on the floristic composition of the vegetation and the soil seed bank in a Mediterranean pasture of central Spain. We sampled the floristic composition of the pasture during 2002 and 2003 springs and also we collected soil seed bank samples in autumn 2002. Floristic composition of soil seed banks was estimated by means of greenhouse germination. Cerastium semidecandrum seeds were almost four times more abundant in the plots subjected to ant exclusion than in those with ant activity. Due to the high spatial heterogeneity shown by soil seed banks, we have corrected the differences found between the autumn soil seed banks subjected to different ant treatments by using the floristic composition of the pasture community in the previous spring, as it was the primary source of the seeds collected in autumn. We found significant differences between the floristic composition of the soil seed banks subjected to ant exclusion and control treatments. However, no effects where found when the same procedure was used to detect ant effects on the spring adult community, highlighting the necessity of longer time spans for these pastures to manifest changes taking place at the soil seed bank stageinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessSociedad de Biología de ChileRevista chilena de historia natural v.78 n.4 20052005-12-01text/htmlhttp://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0716-078X2005000400002en10.4067/S0716-078X2005000400002
institution	Scielo Chile
collection	Scielo Chile
language	English
topic	annual pasture ant exclusion predation soil seed bank spatial heterogeneity
spellingShingle	annual pasture ant exclusion predation soil seed bank spatial heterogeneity ESPIGARES,TÍSCAR LÓPEZ-PINTOR,ANTONIO Seed predation in a Mediterranean pasture: can ants modify the floristic composition of soil seed banks?
description	Ants may play an important role on vegetation dynamics, especially in arid and semiarid environments, where they can consume a high proportion of the produced seeds. Although some works have analysed the influence of seed predation by ants on the density of vegetation in Mediterranean pastures, there are no studies on the influence of ant activity upon the floristic composition of the vegetation and the soil seed banks in this kind of ecosystem. We have studied the effect of ant exclusion on the floristic composition of the vegetation and the soil seed bank in a Mediterranean pasture of central Spain. We sampled the floristic composition of the pasture during 2002 and 2003 springs and also we collected soil seed bank samples in autumn 2002. Floristic composition of soil seed banks was estimated by means of greenhouse germination. Cerastium semidecandrum seeds were almost four times more abundant in the plots subjected to ant exclusion than in those with ant activity. Due to the high spatial heterogeneity shown by soil seed banks, we have corrected the differences found between the autumn soil seed banks subjected to different ant treatments by using the floristic composition of the pasture community in the previous spring, as it was the primary source of the seeds collected in autumn. We found significant differences between the floristic composition of the soil seed banks subjected to ant exclusion and control treatments. However, no effects where found when the same procedure was used to detect ant effects on the spring adult community, highlighting the necessity of longer time spans for these pastures to manifest changes taking place at the soil seed bank stage
author	ESPIGARES,TÍSCAR LÓPEZ-PINTOR,ANTONIO
author_facet	ESPIGARES,TÍSCAR LÓPEZ-PINTOR,ANTONIO
author_sort	ESPIGARES,TÍSCAR
title	Seed predation in a Mediterranean pasture: can ants modify the floristic composition of soil seed banks?
title_short	Seed predation in a Mediterranean pasture: can ants modify the floristic composition of soil seed banks?
title_full	Seed predation in a Mediterranean pasture: can ants modify the floristic composition of soil seed banks?
title_fullStr	Seed predation in a Mediterranean pasture: can ants modify the floristic composition of soil seed banks?
title_full_unstemmed	Seed predation in a Mediterranean pasture: can ants modify the floristic composition of soil seed banks?
title_sort	seed predation in a mediterranean pasture: can ants modify the floristic composition of soil seed banks?
publisher	Sociedad de Biología de Chile
publishDate	2005
url	http://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0716-078X2005000400002
work_keys_str_mv	AT espigarestiscar seedpredationinamediterraneanpasturecanantsmodifythefloristiccompositionofsoilseedbanks AT lopezpintorantonio seedpredationinamediterraneanpasturecanantsmodifythefloristiccompositionofsoilseedbanks
_version_	1718439580410052608

Seed predation in a Mediterranean pasture: can ants modify the floristic composition of soil seed banks?

Ejemplares similares