How are seed banks studied?
The methods of studying and identifying seed bank composition is straightforward – obtain a sample and either find and identify the seed itself, or germinate the seed and identify the seedling. Seed banks have been studied for well over a century. In fact one of the earliest published descriptions of a seed bank study was by Charles Darwin, who counted the seedlings that geminated from a sample of mud from a pond. Many types of habitats have been studied since then, including grassland pastures, agricultural lands, forests, prairies, wetlands and tundra. Collectively this research has defined several basic principles of seed bank ecology.
