Restoring Future Forests: How Fire, Deer, and Canopy Gaps Shape Forest Seed Banks and Regeneration Potential

Abstract

Soil seed banks are the hidden reservoir of forest plant diversity. Seed banking is a reproductive adaptation that allows plants to persist belowground as dormant seeds, where the soil serves as a buffer from aboveground disturbances. They play a key role in the recovery of forests post-disturbance, and it’s the post-disturbance plant recovery that replenishes, or makes seed deposits, in the seed bank. Since certain plant species are favored or disfavored by the type of forest disturbance, seed banks can vary depending on the disturbance affecting aboveground plants, and the abundance and diversity of seed banks wanes over time. Because of this, seed banks are strongly influenced by the reintroduction of disturbances and may be influenced by future disturbance regimes.

Citation

Brandon, Andrea; Royo, Alejandro; Reed, Samuel. 2025. Restoring Future Forests: How Fire, Deer, and Canopy Gaps Shape Forest Seed Banks and Regeneration Potential. Rooted in Research Issue 51, June 2025. Madison, WI: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northern Research Station. 2 p