The influence of fire seasons on availability of viable seeds Claire Brown and Robert Whelan. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong NSW 2522.
Fire season is one feature of a fire regime which can affect recruitment to plant populations.
In order to determine the potential effects of fire season on recruitment, this study investigated the dynamics of the seed banks of Petrophile sessilis and Hakea sericea. For H. sericea, the seeds produced from the 1995 flowering caused a doubling in the viable seed store in May 1996, but for P.sessilis , this age class was just starting to mature by January, 1997. For H. sericea the seed store appears to be accumulating each year because older fruits retain a high level of viability.