Ecological restoration of urban forests is influenced by an array of alterations to the physical environment and biota. These changes originate in human choices made within a web of interconnected social-ecological systems. In remnant and regenerating forest patches in urban parks, invasive species introduced by aesthetic, practical, or accidental means are a major management concern. Climbing woody plants are especially problematic in forest fragments with high edge-to-interior ratios. Municipalities are increasingly turning to forest restoration to provide locally-sourced ecosystem services to urban people. The long-term effect of these efforts to reestablish regenerating forests dominated by native plants will rely on successfully altering trajectories of ecological succession. The availability of plant propagules is an important driver of these trajectories. Soil seed banks represent both a species pool of these propagules and a means by which species disperse through time. To test the effect of ecological restoration on soil seed banks as a source of propagules influencing outcomes of restoration treatments, we examined soil seed banks from urban forest patches in five large urban parks in New York City that were dominated by invasive climbing woody plants (n = 28), and from patches where these species were removed and native trees were planted 20 years before (n = 30).
Results/Conclusions
Preliminary results of a two-year germination trial indicate that restoration has significant (p < 0.05) effects on seedbank dynamics, including reduction in seed abundance of targeted invasive plants and greater abundance of native tree seeds, indicating long-term effects on potential development of forest trajectories.