SPATIAL PATTERN OF SEEDLING RECRUITMENT AT 2 DIFFERENT SCALES IN A LIMESTONE GRASSLAND

The effect of community pattern on seedling recruitment was analysed at two different scales, at the community level and at the intra-community level. Results showed that at the community level, the process of seedling recruitment is highly stochastic. The distribution of seeds in the seed-bank is locally clumped at a very small scale and a similar pattern was found for seedling recruitment. This means that at least part of the spatial distribution of seedlings can be explained by the fine-grained differences in the abundance of seeds. At the same time, the processes affecting spatial pattern of seedling recruitment at the community level are constrained by intra-community heterogeneity. Physiognomically different patches occurring within the community showed significant differences in both number and species composition of seedlings.