DOI: 10.5061/dryad.ksn02v72g
title: European soil seed bank communities across a climate and land-cover gradient

description: This is the data set used for the publication Buffering effects of soil
 seed banks on plant community composition in response to land use and
 climate, published in the journal Global Ecology and Biogeography. Aim.
 Climate and land use are key determinants of biodiversity, with past and
 ongoing changes posing serious threats to global ecosystems. Unlike most
 other organism groups, plant species can possess dormant life-history
 stages such as soil seed banks, which may help plant communities to resist
 or at least postpone the detrimental impact of global changes. This study
 investigates the potential for soil seed banks to achieve this. Location.
 Europe Time period. 1978 – 2014 Major taxa studied. Flowering plants
 Methods. Using a space-for-time/warming approach, we study plant species
 richness and composition in the herb layer and the soil seed bank in 2796
 community plots from 54 datasets in managed grasslands, forests and
 intermediate, successional habitats across a climate gradient. Results.
 Soil seed banks held more species than the herb layer, being
 compositionally similar across habitats. Species richness was lower in
 forests and successional habitats compared to grasslands, with annual
 temperature range more important than mean annual temperature for
 determining richness. Climate and land use effects were generally less
 pronounced when plant community richness included seed bank species
 richness, while there was no clear effect of land use and climate on
 compositional similarity between the seed bank and the herb layer. Main
 conclusions. High seed bank diversity and compositional similarity between
 the herb layer and seed bank plant communities may provide a potentially
 important functional buffer against the impact of ongoing environmental
 changes on plant communities. This capacity could, however, be threatened
 by climate warming. Dormant life-history stages can therefore be important
 sources of diversity in changing environments, potentially underpinning
 already observed time-lags in plant community responses to global change.
 However, as soil seed banks themselves appear, albeit less, vulnerable to
 the same changes, their potential to buffer change can only be temporary,
 and major community shifts may still be expected.
description: This dataset is a collection of 41 published and 5 unpublished
 data sets, consisting of 2796 plots with corresponding seed bank and herb
 layer community data. Sampling effort varied across data sets, but
 involved sampling of the soil and subsequent germination trials in a
 greenhouse to determine seed bank composition. Herb layer communities were
 determined by the identification of plants in relevés. Please consult the
 readme file and published paper for further details.
description: Please contact database or individual data set authors for
 further information and collaboration when using the data set or any of
 its component parts. Please also note that some of these data sets have
 already been published alongside their orginal papers. Finally, please
 cite data and datasets according to community standards.