A species-area curve for buried viable seeds

Abstract

A species-area curve was constructed for buried viable weed seeds in a 5-year-old subterranean clover-annual ryegrass pasture in south-eastern Australia. A soil surface area of about 200 cm2 (to a depth of 10 cm) was required to obtain a representative individual sample (i.e. a replicate) of the number of taxa in the soil seed bank, whereas a combined area of about 1000 cm2 was required for adequacy within any treatment. The total number of buried viable seeds of all species combined was distributed spatially in a more-or-less uniform manner. This suggests that a sample whose size is sufficient for determination of species diversity of buried seeds is equally adequate for measuring buried seed density.