Özet:

In order to understand how the seed rain differs among Amazonian forests, I sampled the seed rain in six different forest types across the Amazonian landscape. Methods: I set up seed traps and took seed samples in three unflooded forests (terra firme, white sand-varillal, palm) and three white-water flooded forests (high restinga, low restinga, tahaumpa) in Peru over a period of one year. Results: I found (1) all forest types had dispersed seed of many unique species, with a few species in common, (2) total seed load peaked in the early part of the year – near the end of the rainy season – and then decreased monotonically over the remainder of the year for all forest types, (3) species richness was greater in unflooded forests compared to flooded forests and the largest number of species were found in terra firme, (4) seeds were more evenly distributed among species in the unflooded forests compared to the flooded forests, and (5) Fisher’s α diversity of seeds was greater in high and low restinga compared to tahaumpa. Conclusions: I conclude for the unflooded forests that seed species number and richness increased with soil fertility but for the flooded forests seed species number and richness decreased with months under water. Furthermore, when taken together, results suggest that for forests across the Amazonian landscape differences in flooding regime may have a greater effect on both seed rain load and seed species richness than differences in availability of soil nutrients.

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