Botanikai Közlemények

Botanikai Közlemények 102(1–2): 141–157 (2015)
DOI: 10.17716/BotKozlem.2015.102.1-2.141

The role of seed banks in sustaining alkali grassland biodiversity in the Hortobágy National Park, Hungary

K. TÓTH¹*, B. A. LUKÁCS², Sz. RADÓCZ¹ and E. SIMON¹

¹University of Debrecen, Department of Ecology, H-4010 Debrecen, P O Box 71. * kissa0306@gmail.com

²MTA Centre for Ecological Research, Department of Tisza River Research, H-4026 Debrecen, Bem tér 18/C

Accepted: 27 January 2015

Key words: halophyte, hygrophyte, persistence, salt content, water content.

We studied the vegetation, soil seed banks and environmental factors in three alkali grassland associations:Artemisio santonici-Festucetum pseudovinae dry alkali grasslands at highest elevations; Puccinellietum limosae at medium elevations and Agrostio stoloniferae-Caricetum distantis at the lowest elevations. We tested the following hypotheses: (i) Both species diversity in the seed banks and seed density are the highest in the most stressed grassland type (ii) Seed density of hygrophytes increases with decreasing elevation. We detected a mean seed bank density ranging from 30 104 up to 51 410 seeds/m², which was higher than in most dry grasslands. The findings did not support our first hypothesis; both the lowest seed bank diversity and seed density were detected in the most stressed Puccinellietum limosae grasslands, where Spergularia salina and Juncus compressus were the only abundant seed bank species (possessing at least 1 000 seeds/m²). We detected the highest seed densities of the hygrophyte species in the lowest-elevated Agrostio stoloniferae-Caricetum distantis grasslands. The results partly supported the second hypothesis; most of the hygrophyte species were missing from the seed bank at the medium-elevated, but most saline Puccinellia grasslands. We detected more species in the seed banks than in the aboveground vegetation which underlines the importance of seed banks in sustaining the diversity of alkali grasslands. However, most of the graminoid species possessed no considerable seed bank, except for Juncus compressus (up to 38 619 seeds/m²). Our results suggest that persistence and establishment of most alkali grassland species are not supported by the local seed banks.

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