Seed life span and food security.
Resource type
Journal article
Date published
June 21, 2019
Abstract
Summary Much is known about the inter-specific distribution of life span in a wide diversity of vertebrates and in adult plants, but not for seeds, yet the functional trait seed life span underpins global agriculture, plant species conservation and seed persistence in the soil. We sourced data for five storage conditions (soil seed bank; high temperature – high humidity accelerated ageing; temperate, cooler, open storage; cool, dry, refrigerator; and cold, dry, freezer); and analysed the distribution of orthodox seed life span amongst crop and wild species. In all cases, whether for maximum known in situ life span in the soil seed bank (417 species), or for half-lives (P50s) ex situ (732 species), the distribution is right-skewed. The finding that seeds of > 50% of species are likely to have life spans ≤ 20% of the longest recorded under the same conditions has implications for future research on the evolution of seed traits and gene bank collections management.
Funder
| Funder name | Awards |
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, UK Government, United Kingdom | |
Journal title
New Phytologist
Volume
224
Issue
2
Publisher
Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Place of publication
UK
ISSN
0028-646X
eISSN
1469-8137
Date accepted
June 21, 2019
Rights statement
In Copyright