Regeneration strategies in a temperate hardwood floodplain forest of the Upper Rhine: sexual versus vegetative reproduction of woody species

The regeneration mechanisms of woody species in the hardwood floodplain forest of the Upper Rhine are not well known, although they are of primary importance for future forest development. To gain a better understanding of the balance between sexual and asexual regeneration strategies and to assess the role of the seed bank in regeneration, the similarities in species composition and abundance of four fundamental compartments involved in regeneration (the seed rain, the seed bank, the recruits and the canopy) were compared in three hardwood forest stands with different flooding conditions. The results show that the floristic composition of the recruits is very similar to that of the canopy, whereas the composition of the seed bank is very dissimilar to the latter and comprises very few hardwood species. However, some species such as Fraxinus excelsior, Carpinus betulus and Acer pseudoplatanus which are very rare in the seed bank release a high number of diaspores, and seedlings of these species germinate abundantly in the field in the year following seed release. Moreover, the germinating seeds originate from the litter layer and not from the soil itself. This shows that most woody species regenerating by seed in the hardwood Rhine forest build transient seed banks and that the role of persistent seed banks for regeneration is very limited. Furthermore, it appears that many woody species have developed strategies favouring vegetative propagation for their regeneration, particularly understorey species, such as Cornus sanguinea and Prunus padus. As vegetatively grown individuals better withstand prolonged inundation in their early life stages than seedlings, species relying on vegetative regeneration strategies might be advantaged by regular and prolonged flooding of the Rhine forest over species regenerating only by seeds.