Abundance and Diversity of Seedlings of the Soil Seed Bank in the Thickets of the Invasive Species Acer negundo L.

Abstract

We investigated the assumption of transformation of soil seed banks under the influence of invasive plants. For this purpose, we analyzed the taxonomic diversity and abundance of seedlings from the soil seed bank in the thickets of the invasive ash-leaved maple Acer negundo L. We performed our experiments using the seedlings emerged from soil seed banks collected in two types of habitats in Yekaterinburg (dense thickets of A. negundo and habitats with similar geomorphological and edaphic features but without A. negundo). In addition, we analyzed the seedlings emerged from sod-podzolic soils collected from suburban meadow areas. We observed a small negative effect of A. negundo on the abundance of seedlings from the soil seed bank. The amount of seedlings on the soil from the thickets of A. negundo was lower by 1.5–2.5 times than in urban habitats without this species. The taxonomic diversity of seedlings differed between suburban and urban habitats but did not depend on the presence of habitat transformation by A. negundo.