Identification

Title

Seed production and seedling survival in a stand of Corsican pine in Southern Britain

Alternative title(s)

AH463

Abstract

There is much literature on natural regeneration which emphasizes the importance of good seed year, but few authors consider seed input in terms of the combination of seed quantity (i.e. number of seeds) plus seed quality (i.e. percentage of viable seeds). We have considered both aspects and also attempted to identify the proportions of good vs poor quality seeds contributing to natural regeneration via ‘ seed rain ’ vs ‘ cone drop ’ . In addition to studying seed input, we looked at the effects of vegetation control, ground preparation and protection from small mammals on seedling emergence and survival. Over a 3-year period (February 2001 to March 2004), there was enough seed production and seedling survival to conclude that natural regeneration could be successful beneath a 50-year-old stand of Corsican pine in the south of England. Peaks of pine seed release occurred in March/April in 2002 and 2003, but it was extremely surprising to observe that some seed was trapped in virtually every month of the 3-year study, demonstrating an almost continual release of (at least) small quantities of seeds. In line with this finding, although most pine seedlings were found shortly after peak seed dispersal in May, June and July; new seedlings were found in every month throughout the study except February and October. In general, vegetation control and ground preparation had a positive effect on seedling survival; the probability of a seedling surviving for 300 days was between 50 and 60 per cent. See also: Kerr, G., Gosling, P., Morgan, G., Stokes, V., Cunningham, V. and Parratt, M. (2008) Seed production and seedling survival in a 50 year-old stand of Corsican pine (Pinus nigra subsp. laricio) in southern Britain. Forestry, 81 (4): 525-541. Attribution statement:

Resource type

dataset

Resource locator

https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/data.defra.gov.uk/Forestry/FC_OpenData/FR/AH463.zip

protocol: WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link

name:

description:

Unique resource identifier

code

57ebd6a8-08d0-46c6-9253-547c27854df6

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

http://www.opengis.net/def/crs/EPSG/0/27700

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

environment

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

OpenData

Keyword set

keyword value

England

Keyword set

keyword value

Science

Research

Seedling

Seeds

Germination

Ground preparation

Keyword set

keyword value

seed (biology)

originating controlled vocabulary

title

GEMET - Concepts, version 2.4

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2010-01-13

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

-0.8515

East bounding longitude

-0.8505000000000001

North bounding latitude

51.1853

South bounding latitude

51.1847

Extent

Extent group

authority code

code identifying the extent

http://data.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/doc/country/england

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

2001-03-01

End position

2004-04-30

Dataset reference date

date type

creation

effective date

2004-12-31

date type

revision

effective date

2016-01-19

Frequency of update

notPlanned

Quality and validity

Lineage

Data were created following the method described in Kerr et al. (2008). The "cumulative counts" csv files give monthly totals for Trays (East and West) and Quadrats (East and West) Totals are recorded for birch, western hemlock, corsican pine, "other" seed (unidentified), Numbers of empty/broken pieces of husks are also recorded as well as cones and cores. The seed part of this collection went on for germination in the labs. The empty/broken husks, cones and cores were simply counted and removed from the trial. Birch, western hemlock and "other" seeds went on to a pre-chilled germination. The numbers of normal germinations after 0, 7, 14, 21, 28 and 35 days were counted. THIS COUNT IS CUMULATIVE. The remainder of the seeds were classified into: abnormal = seed germinated but did not develop normally fresh = seed live and viable but did not germinate in the 35 day period chit = seed germinated on probably the last day of the experiment (was just starting germination) dead = seed was dead empty = seed cut open at the end of the germination trial and was found to be empty Corsican pine seeds went on to a no-prechill germination The numbers of normal germinations after 0, 7, 14, 21, 28 and 35 days were counted. THIS COUNT IS CUMULATIVE. After June 2001 the germination trial was reduced to 28 days as no further seeds had been observed germinating after 35 days. The remainder of the seeds were classified into: abnormal = seed germinated but did not develop normally fresh = seed live and viable but did not germinate in the 35 day period chit = seed germinated on probably the last day of the experiment (was just starting germination) dead = seed was dead empty = seed cut open at the end of the germination trial and was found to be empty "VIABLE SEED" = gernimated, abnormal, chit and fresh "NON-VIABLE SEED" = dead and empty seeds NOTE July/August/September 2001 were all sampled together October 2003 was a 3 week collection Late October/November 2003 was a 6 week collection

Conformity

Data format

name of format

Open format | Comma Separated Values file (CSV)

version of format

NA

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Contains Forestry Commission information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Constraint set

Limitations on public access

There are no public access constraints to this data. Use of this data is subject to the licence identified.

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

organisation name

Forestry Commission

email address

mapping.geodata@forestry.gov.uk

web address

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/

description: Forestry Commission Website

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact

organisation name

Forestry Commission

email address

mapping.geodata@forestry.gov.uk

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata date

2020-03-19

Metadata language

eng