Soil seed bank and seed rain in the seasonally dry tropical forest
Description
We used this data to examine to what extent these two primary seed sources –seed rain and seed bank– are contributing to the community assemblage, and how the dispersal phenology and dispersal syndrome can explain those contributions. We developed this study in a small-protected area of SDTF in Southwestern Ecuador. This area represents one of the last SDTF remnants below 100 m a.s.l. along the South America pacific coast. We considered this area might be useful as a reference site of “pristine forest” to guide restoration actions. These data were used to manuscript Jara-Guerrero et al. Dispersal syndrome influences the match between seed rain and soil seed bank of woody species in a Neotropical dry forest. Journal of Vegetation Science. Sampling of the seed rain Seed traps were used to sample the seed rain. Traps were made of a mesh fabric with holes < 0.5 mm to allow water runoff while preventing seed loss. The fabric was placed on a square metal frame 80 cm long (0.64 m2) located 80 cm above the ground (Stevenson & Vargas 2008). We placed 265 traps in a regular grid in an area of 220 x 220 m of forest (4.8 ha), in the central part of the 9 ha plot. Sampling of the soil seed bank Soil seed bank was sampled once between November and December 2011, at the end of the dry season, when most seeds had been dispersed and before germination started in the rainy season. This sampling date corresponds with the moment in which the soil seed samples reach their maximum diversity and density, i.e., it includes both the transient and the persistent soil seed bank (Caballero et al., 2005; Espinosa et al., 2013). As in the case of the seed rain, 265 soil samples were collected in 0.25 x 0.25 x 0.03 m squares located adjacent to the seed traps, adding up to a total sampled area of 16.56 m2. Seed bank composition was assessed using the germination method, which allows estimating viable seeds in the soil (Bigwood & Inouye, 1988; Holzapfel et al., 1993; Caballero et al., 2008).