Maintaining upland floristic diversity whilst cutting for biomass production: the impact of the seed bank

An annual cutting and biomass removal management regime increased the above ground floristic diversity (as measured by the Shannon Weiner index) in five semi-natural habitats across mid Wales over a three-year period, for the purpose of bioenergy generation. There was little evidence of the seed bank contributing to an increase in above ground plant species richness in the current study. However, the seed bank may have contributed to changes in dominance in the above ground vegetation. The implications of the low impact of the seed bank upon the above ground diversity in the current study are that the seed bank alone will not provide substantial resistance to plant community dominance. The seed bank may increase the above ground dominance of particular species that create seed prolificacy and with extended longevity. A cutting management regime may need to be consistently employed in order to counteract the dominance patterns that emerge from the soil seed bank, and the resultant biomass can potentially be processed for energy