Ecology of the soil seed bank in sandstone ecosystem within Cairo-Suez Desert, Egypt

Abstract EN

In the present investigation, the ecology of the soil seed bank has been undertaken in neighbonng microhabitats within sandstone desert ecosystem along Cairo-Suez road.

The study showed that the member of seedlings emerged from the soils collected from the different distinguished sites, exhibited clear seasonal variations, being higher in the samples collected during dry summer season than those collected in the wet winter season.

For example seedlings amounting to 3432 / m2 and 200 / m2 were recorded in the soil samples collected from the mounds inhabited by Haloxylon salicornicum in dry and rainy seasons respectively.

The obtained results evinced that there was an intimate relationship between the quantity of buried seeds and physical attributes of the upper soil layer.

The tanner the soil particles, the higher the number of its seed content.

Soil seed banks of 423, 30876, 45920 and 76104 seeds / m2 were counted in the soil samples collected from the upper 2 cm deep layer of the gravel-covered hill, gravelly slope, runnels dissecting the slope and the main channel of the studied Wadi respectively.