caa a22 4500 46909608X CHVBK 20180323133031.0 cr unu---uuuuu 170328e19921201xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/BF00317840 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/BF00317840 Salt stress limitation of seedling recruitment in a salt marsh plant community [Elektronische Daten] [Scott Shumway, Mark Bertness] Summary: Seedling recruitment in salt marsh plant communities is generally precluded in dense vegetation by competition from adults, but is also relatively rare in disturbance-generated bare space. We examined the constraints on seedling recruitment in New England salt marsh bare patches. Under typical bare patch conditions seed germination is severely limited by high substrate salinities. We examined the germination requirements of common high marsh plants and found that except for one notably patch-dependent fugitive species, the germination of high marsh plants is strongly inhibited by the high soil salinities routinely encountered in natural bare patches. Watering high marsh soil in the greenhouse to alleviate salt stress resulted in the emergence of up to 600 seedlings/225 cm2. The vast majority of this seed bank consisted of Juncus gerardi, the only common high marsh plant with high seed set. We tested the hypothesis that salt stress limits seedling contributions to marsh patch secondary succession in the field. Watering bare patches with fresh water partially alleviated patch soil salinities and dramatically increased both the emergence and survival of seedlings. Our results show that seedling recruitment by high marsh perennial turfs is limited by high soil salinities and that consequently their population dynamics are determined primarily by clonal growth processes. In contrast, populations of patch-dependent fugitive marsh plants which cannot colonize vegetatively are likely governed by spatially and temporally unpredictable windows of low salinities in bare patches. Springer-Verlag, 1992 Halophytes nationallicence Salt marsh ecology nationallicence Secondary succession nationallicence Seed bank nationallicence Seedling recruitment nationallicence Shumway Scott Graduate Program in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Brown University, 02912, Providence, RI, USA aut Bertness Mark Graduate Program in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Brown University, 02912, Providence, RI, USA aut Oecologia Springer-Verlag 92/4(1992-12-01), 490-497 0029-8549 92:4<490 1992 92 442 https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00317840 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00317840 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Shumway Scott Graduate Program in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Brown University, 02912, Providence, RI, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Bertness Mark Graduate Program in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Brown University, 02912, Providence, RI, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Oecologia Springer-Verlag 92/4(1992-12-01), 490-497 0029-8549 92:4<490 1992 92 442 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer