Abdubakir Kushbokov‘s study on the effects of grazing exclusion on soil seed banks in the Icelandic rangelands has now been published in the journal Icelandic Agricultural Sciences. You can find the article here.
Abdubakir sampled soils within the FENCES experiment, six years after grazing exclosure, to evaluate the potential of grazing exclusion as a tool to facilitate restoration of degraded rangelands through the soil seed bank. To do that, he germinated seeds in the soil and compared above- and below ground species composition. Grazing exclusion reduced the number of seeds germinating from the soil seed banks at one of the sites, while it had no effect at the other site. Given the low abundance of seeds found in rangeland soils, the results suggest that the role of soil seed banks in the regeneration of rangeland vegetation in Iceland may be limited. Grazing exclusion may thus not be an efficient short-term strategy to strengthen soil seed banks in rangelands that have been grazed for centuries, so the restoration of degraded rangelands in Iceland may require additional active interventions.
Abdubakir was a visiting researcher in the Tundra Ecology Lab, during his 6-month stay in Iceland as as a fellow in the GRÓ LRT programme in 2022. He is now a recipient of a Stipendium Hungaricum scholarship at the Doctoral School of Environmental Science at the University of Szeged, Hungary. His PhD project, titled Evaluation of Soil Seed Bank Restoration Potential in Rangelands of Kyzylkum Desert Along Degradation Gradients will contribute important research on soil seed banks in his home country, Uzbekistan.
Congratulations Abdu!
