Life Sciences Commons^™

Seed Reserves In Desert Soils, David W. Goodall, Suzanne J. Morgan

Memorandum

Soil and litter samples were collected from the playa, playa fringe and bajada zones of the Jornada Validation Site. These samples were analyzed for their seed content, special attention being paid to spatial distribution. At the time of sampling, there was little litter on the soil surface, and the litter contained only a small proportion of the total seeds present.

Methodological And Validation Study Of Seed Reserves In Desert Soils, David W. Goodall, Stuart Childs, Herman Wiebe

Memorandum

The development of a method for separating seeds from desert soils, and enumerating them, is described.

In the Great Basin desert, species differed greatly in their depth distribution, some having a peak at or just below the surface, while others were still abundant below 5 cm. Much higher seed densities were found beneath the canopies of shrubs and of tussock grasses than in the inter-spaces; no consistent differences were found, however, associated with the species of the canopy plant, or with distance from its center.

Tentative estimates are given of the seed population in the four validation sites in Curlew …