This experiment was designed to explicitly test seed dormancy strategies - a common adaptive bet-hedging strategy which spreads the risk of extinction for plants in more arid variable climates. We want to identify if these seed dormancy strategies are able to provide resistance for species to climate change.
In addition, we are working in collaboration with Mark Rees (University of Sheffield, UK) and Leonor Álvarez-Cansino (University of Bayreuth, Germany) to further test seed dormancy, and other rainfall and grazing related plant strategies, within a fully explicit simulation model closely linked to vast quantities of long-term data we have collected as part of the GLOWA project.
Overall Aims:
- Determine intra- and inter- specific seed dormancy strategies for a large number of species across a natural rainfall gradient, using species established at two sites varying in rainfall quantity and variability.
- Establish if patterns of germination fractions are consistent with bet hedging theory ie more dormancy in more unpredictably varying environments.
- Determine under what conditions seed dormancy strategies are likely to be more variable within a community.
- Use the results to validate and parameterize a mechanistic simulation modeling approach.
Main Investigators: Mark Bilton & Katja Tielbörger
Collaborators:
Mark Rees - University of Sheffield
Leonor Álvarez-Cansino - University of Bayreuth, Germany