New Zealand Journal of Botany abstracts
B99030Received 21 June 1999; accepted 11 October 2000
Seed rain in successional vegetation, Port Hills Ecological District, New
Zealand
R. J. DUNGAN
D. A. NORTON
Conservation Research Group
School of Forestry
University of Canterbury
Private Bag 4800
Christchurch, New Zealand
R. P. DUNCAN
Ecology and Entomology Group
Soil, Plant and Ecological Sciences Division
Lincoln University
P.O. Box 84
Lincoln 8150, New Zealand
Abstract Patterns in vegetation and seed rain were measured
in an abandoned agricultural scrubland/forest system in lowland Canterbury to
test relationships between patterns of seed rain and succession in seral scrub
and established low forest. Indicator species analysis separated four distinct
vegetation types which formed a successional chronosequence confirmed by
air-photo interpretation and analysis of vegetation composition. Vegetation
biomass (approximated by summed species importance scores) and species richness
(mean species plot
-1) both increased with successional stage.
Although there was a significant difference in seed rain density among
vegetation types, the relationship between seed rain and succession was clouded
by individual species fecundity. There was a significant positive relationship
between successional stage and seed rain species richness. The proportion of
seed species present in seed rain but absent from extant vegetation was greater
in less advanced vegetation. This relationship was determined by low species
richness in the vegetation and a suite of highly mobile seed species, typical
of more mature forest, common to all vegetation types. We conclude that forest
recovery is not dispersal limited in the forest and seral scrub vegetation we
investigated, and that with the continued absence of grazing pressure forest
recovery should be rapid.
Keywords seed dispersal; vegetation chronosequence;
succession; species invasion; forest recovery
New Zealand Journal of Botany, 2001, Vol. 39: 115-124
0028-825X/00/3901-0115 $7.00 (c) The Royal Society of New Zealand 2001
PDF file of entire paper: medium quality (911K); (scanned from paper original: notes about this process)
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