Subsidient: Anoek van den Bosch/Utrecht Univesity
Subsidie: S171.69
Riverbank channelization for log transportation has degraded riparian systems in Northern Sweden, leading to a diminished biodiversity of the ecosystem. Research has shown that restoration initiatives have been insufficient in recovering biodiversity. As seeds present in the soil seedbank have the first opportunity to germinate after restoration, the seedbank could play an important role in riparian vegetation dynamics after restoration. Therefore, the formation and content of the soil seedbanks was studied. Two channelized sites were compared with six restored sites restored between 1995 and 2013. The effects of channelization on the seedbank content were studied by carrying out a hydrochory tracking experiment, growing seedbank samples and vegetation inventories. The results showed equal seed stranding between channelized and restored reaches and that channelized seedbanks contain an equal quantity of seeds and species richness as restored seedbanks. There were implications of less non-local species present in the channelized seedbank. Further, the number of seeds in the seedbank were generally quite low compared to other riparian studies, and a poor seedbank can hamper the development of biodiverse riparian vegetation. Further research on the channelized seedbank is therefore needed to truly understand the role of the seedbank in vegetation recovery at riparian zones.
