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Dispersal and germination syndromes of tree seeds in a seasonal evergreen monsoon rainforest on Hainan Island, China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2013

Wenjie Yang ,
Fude Liu ,
Shiting Zhang  and
Shuqing An
Wenjie Yang
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Global Changes, School of Life Science, Nanjing University, 22 Hankou Road, Nanjing, China College of Horticulture and Forestry Science, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China
Fude Liu
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Global Changes, School of Life Science, Nanjing University, 22 Hankou Road, Nanjing, China Key Laboratory of Water Resources and Environment of Shandong Province, Water Resources Research Institute of Shandong Province, Jinan250013, China
Shiting Zhang
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Global Changes, School of Life Science, Nanjing University, 22 Hankou Road, Nanjing, China
Shuqing An*
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Global Changes, School of Life Science, Nanjing University, 22 Hankou Road, Nanjing, China
*
*Correspondence E-mail: anshq@nju.edu.cn
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Abstract

This paper examines the dispersal–germination strategy of seeds of 66 native tree species from a seasonal evergreen monsoon rainforest on Hainan Island, China, and assesses correlations among seed germination and phylogeny, dispersal mode and dispersal season. Seeds of 15, 7, 25 and 19 species were dispersed during the warm dry (March–May), rainy (June–September), late rainy (October–November) and cool dry (December–February) seasons, respectively. Berries (16 species), drupes (14 species) and capsules (12 species) were common and represented about 64% of the species. Zoochory was the most common dispersal mode (69.7%) followed by anemochory (16.7%) and autochory (13.6%). More than 65% of species had dormant seeds. Based on germination speed and synchrony, six patterns were recognized: rapid and synchronous germination (13 species), intermediate and synchronous germination (3 species), intermediate and intermediately synchronous germination (24 species), intermediate and asynchronous germination (2 species), slow and intermediately synchronous germination (5 species), and slow and asynchronous germination (19 species). One-way ANOVAs revealed that the variance in germination percentages among species was largely dependent upon phylogeny. The mean and median length of germination (MLG) were largely dependent upon phylogeny, dispersal mode and dispersal season. Anemochorous seeds germinated faster than autochorous and zoochorous seeds. Seeds dispersed in the late dry or early rainy season (March–May) tended to germinate quickly, whereas those dispersed towards the end of the rainy season and into the cool dry season are likely to have a much longer length of dormancy. Correlation analyses indicated that larger seeds germinated faster and had higher germination percentages.

Keywords

dispersal strategygermination timephylogenyseed dormancyseed mass
Type
Research Papers
Information
Seed Science Research , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , March 2013 , pp. 41 - 55
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013

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