bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/660159; this version posted June 4, 2019. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY 4.0 International license. Lower dormancy with rapid germination for arid seeds 1 Lower dormancy with rapid germination is an important 2 strategy for seeds in an arid zone with unpredictable rainfall 3 4 Corrine Duncan1*, Nick Schultz1, Wolfgang Lewandrowski2,3, Megan Good4 and Simon 5 Cook1 6 1 School of Health and Life Sciences, Federation University Australia, VIC 3350, Australia 7 2 Kings Park Science, Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, Kings Park, 8 WA 6005, Australia 9 3 School of Biological Sciences, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA 6009, 10 Australia 11 4 School of BioSciences, The University of Melbourne, VIC 3010, Australia 12 13 * Corresponding author: 14 * Email -
[email protected] 15 1 bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/660159; this version posted June 4, 2019. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY 4.0 International license. Lower dormancy with rapid germination for arid seeds 16 Abstract 17 Seed germination traits are key drivers of population dynamics, yet they are under- 18 represented in community ecology studies, which have predominately focussed on adult plant 19 and seed morphological traits.