Study
Seeds: Ecology, Biogeography, and Evolution of Dormancy and Germination
Baskin, Carol C.; Baskin, Jerry M.
Academic Press, 2014
A monograph classifying seed dormancy and the conditions that break it: physiological, morphological, physical, combinational and morphophysiological dormancy, and the temperature, light, moisture and chemical cues associated with each across biomes.
- Studied in
- Angiospermae, Gymnospermae
- Sample size
- monographic synthesis across the seed plants
Dormancy is not a single state. Physical dormancy is an impermeable seed coat broken by abrasion, fire or temperature cycling; physiological dormancy is a block inside the embryo relieved by warm or cold stratification; and several classes combine both. The cue that breaks dormancy predicts the season in which a seedling will find conditions it can survive.
What it means
The authors' reading, and ours. Where they differ, that difference is the point.
How the authors put it
Dormancy is a timing mechanism. Its classes correspond to the environmental information a seed can reliably use in its habitat.
How NatureHQ reads it
This reframes germination from a question about water and warmth into a question about information. A seed that germinates whenever it is wet enough will eventually germinate in the wrong month and die; dormancy is the machinery that stops it. It is also why a packet of wildflower seed that "does not work" has usually been sown without the cold period it needs.
- Coverage is uneven — temperate floras far better characterised than tropical.
- Dormancy class is assigned from response to treatments, so novel mechanisms can be mislabelled.
- Laboratory germination conditions rarely reproduce field microsites.
Making a seed believe winter has happened
A seed that will not germinate in warm, moist, well-lit conditions is not obviously alive. What is it waiting for?
What this study is used for on NatureHQ
One study can inform several subjects. Here is everywhere this one is cited.
Published by: Academic book publishersPublished as an academic monograph.
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