Journal
SEED SCIENCE RESEARCH
Volume 10, Issue 4, Pages 409-413Publisher
CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1017/S0960258500000453
Keywords
abrasion and physical dormancy; evolution and physical dormancy; microbes and physical dormancy; signal detectors and physical dormancy
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Books and review articles in various areas of ecology and seed and plant biology continue to report that dormancy-break in seeds (and fruits) with water-impermeable coats (i.e. physical dormancy) occurs via soil-microbial action and/or abrasion by soil particles. However, there is little evidence in the scientific literature to support these assumptions, which, in fact, do not make good evolutionary sense for two related reasons. First, several types of anatomically specialized water-restriction structures have evolved as part of the seed or fruit coat of taxa with physical dormancy. These structures act as 'signal detectors' of physical-environmental changes that cause seeds (and fruits) to become water-permeable only at these sites, in seasons and habitats in which there is a good chance that some seedlings will become established. Second, seed (and fruit) coat breakdown by microbial action or by abrasion likely would occur in seasons and habitats in which seedlings could not survive, thus lowering the fitness (lambda) of the plant taxa in question.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available